Training Your Dog To Lay Down

Perhaps one of the easiest commands to teach your dog is the “down” command. This should also be one of the first commands you teach your dog as it helps to reinforce your role as the “Alpha dog”. It also really comes in hand when you are visiting friends and you don’t want your dog knocking over their collection of priceless antique china!
You can try training your dog to lay down as his first “trick” if you want, but sometimes it is easier to get him to master the “site” command first so that you have a base to start from.
If you are jumping right into the ‘Down” command, the first step is to get your dog to lay down. If you observe your dog for a while, you will soon be able to tell when he is about to lay down and at that point, you want to issue the ‘Down” command. When is lays down, praise him and give him one of his favorite treats. At first he will probably just think he lucked out and is getting a nice treat for nothing, but you must keep repeating this task of issuing the command ‘Down” as he is laying down and giving the treat afterwards. Soon he will begin to associate the command with the action.
It might be easier for you to start from the sit command and “force” your dog to lay down. One way to do this is to get your dog to sit, then say “Down” and pull his front paws outward (gently, of course) so that he lays down. When he is laying down, pat him and give him a treat. Then get him back into the sitting position and repeat.
Another method you might try is to use a collar and short leash. Get the dog in a sitting position and pat the ground or take a treat or toy and move it from his chin to the ground while issuing the “Down” command. If he doesn’t get the hint, then pull gently on the leash to get him in the down position.
Remember when training your dog that you must be kind and gentle. When trying to get him in the down position, you don’t want to hurt him or force him – just use gentle encouragement. Always reward your dog when he does lay down, but don’t punish him if he does not lay down as punishment will not help you towards your end goal.
When training your dog, you have to work hard not to confuse him. Your dog might be stuck on the “Sit” command and be confused about the “Down” command thinking he is supposed to remain sitting! It’s your job to get the point across using encouragement and clear, concise commands. Your dog can only process information at the level of a 2 year old human and you need to keep this in mind in order to have successful, fun and fulfilling training sessions.

Training Your Dog To Come

Training your dog to come on command can be tricky, but it is a very important command as it will allow you to call your dog back to you should he be heading into a dangerous situation. In fact, the “Come” command is probably the most important command that you can master when it comes to the safety of your pet.
The problem is that, in order to successfully train your dog to obey any command, you have to first get him to perform the desired action. This can be problematic with the “come” command since it is in your dogs nature to explore his surroundings. You’ve probably noticed that when you bring your dog anywhere he is always running off to inspect something new, right? So how do you get him to “come” to you on his own before you train him to obey the command?
The answer is to simply work with nature. While your dog will love to explore places (even your own home and yard) he will eventually return to you - the alpha dog. So what you need to do is let him get some exploring out of his system and then when he is coming back to you, issue the “come” command. When he gets to you lavish him with praise and a few treats.
You might also try getting him into the sit position by issuing the “Sit” command, then give the “Stay” command. Obviously, your dog must have mastered these two commands prior to this training. Then walk away a bit and encourage him to come to you while saying ‘Come” in a firm tone. Your body language and encouragement will probably do the trick and once he gets their heap on the praise.
Now, there are two problems that might crop up – one is that your dog will not come to you at all and the other is that he will come too soon – even before you have issued the command. Here’s some tricks you might try to remedy these behaviors:
1. If your dog does not come, it could be that he is a little bit confused from his prior training with the “Stay” command and he is just trying to be a good dog. Or, it could be that he is just stubborn! Either way, you might tray putting a leash and collar on and pulling him (gently) towards you when you issue the “Come” command.
2. If your dog has the opposite problem and runs after you as soon as you walk away, then you might want to revisit the “Stay” command. You can use a leash and collar for this as well and wrap the leash around a tree then pull back on it when he tries to “come” too soon and release it after you issue the command.
As with any training, teaching your dog to come takes patience and persistence. Think of it as a fun exercise that you can do with your pet and always remember to use positive reinforcement, rewarding the good behavior and ignoring the bad.

Training Your Dog NOT To Jump Up

One of the most annoying behaviors that dogs have is jumping up. Not only is it annoying, but it can be dangerous too, especially if your dog jumps on an elderly person or a child and knocks them down. To avoid any injury, hard feelings or even a law suit it’s a good idea to train your dog not to jump up.
When a dog jumps up on people it is usually meant as a friendly greeting. He wants to get closer to your face and say “Hi”. Unfortunately we often encourage this behavior. After all, who isn’t happy to see their pet after a long day at work and when he jumps up on you in an overjoyed greeting, you usually respond by petting and rewarding him!
The first thing you need to do is stop encouraging him! You have to be a little tough on this one as your first inclination is to greet your pet in kind, but you will have to do what is best for both you and your dog and hold off the greeting until after your dog’s 4 feet are firmly planted on the ground.
As with all training, you need to get the dog to perform the desired behavior first before he can associate the command with what you want him to do. In this case the behavior is to NOT jump up, but in order to get him to associate not jumping; he has to jump up first.
One way to get your dog to “not jump” is to bring your knee up to his chest when he starts to jump up on you. I don’t mean to kick him – do this gently so that he is a little off balance causing him to go back down to all fours. So the key is to cause the jumping behavior and then while the dog is jumping up, you need to stop the behavior while issuing the “Off” command. When the dog responds by going to all fours, you praise and reward him.
Now, your first thought might be to use the word “Down” for this but if you have already used it as the command for “lay down” then you will need to pick another word. In this article, I suggest using the word “Off” but you can choose any word you want as long as it is short and does not sound like any of the other commands your dog already knows.
The knee technique might not work on all dogs, especially smaller ones so in this case you might want to use a leash and collar. When the dog starts to jump, tug sideways on the collar and issue the “Off” command. This distracts the dog from jumping and he will likely remain standing at which point you can reward him.
Like with any command, repetition is key. The idea is to observe your dog closely and see when he is about to jump up on someone then issue the command. It can be really helpful to have another person help you with this. Eventually you want to get to a place where your dog doesn’t even have a chance to jump – you’ll be able to tell when he is thinking about it and issue the command that will keep him, and the person he was going to jump on, standing firmly on the ground.