# Teaching the random down.



## darga19 (Mar 4, 2009)

Any tips on how to teach this would be helpful.

Marshall has a nice heel and I would like to teach him this when the weather gets warmer...lol.

FYI...we still walk / hike in the winter but training outside is much more rare!









I'm thinking I need to get him out of the habit of sitting and then plopping down first. I don't always use 'sit' before 'down', but he seems to park his lazy butt first anyway! lol


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## BlackPuppy (Mar 29, 2007)

What's a "random" down?


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## Samba (Apr 23, 2001)

I think you are talking about the sphinx down where the dog folds into a down from a stand.

The little vid clip shows a puppy being lured into this from a stand. The hands with food push straight into the dog and then downward at the chest toward the ground. The dog's rear slides back in this movement. It may take some trial and error to get him to do at first. 

http://leerburg.com/playem.htm?name=flv/8-6-09-news.flv


I train this indoors. It doesn't take much space to do.

A random down is just a down you ask for at random. There is no prescription for how it is done but rather that the dog wll down when asked in a variety of situations or positions from or by handler.


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## Cassidy's Mom (Mar 30, 2003)

If he knows "stand" you can do drills of sit/down/stand in random order to make sure he understands every position from every other position. When I start teaching a new puppy these skills I initially use a lure like Samba suggests, for the first few tries only, then I get the food out of that hand and the lure motion becomes the hand signal. I reward from the other hand. Finally, I give the verbal cue, wait a second or two and then use the hand signal as a reminder. The verbal cue becomes a predictor for the hand signal that they already know and is associated with the behavior. Gradually I wait longer and longer (giving them time to figure it out) before I use the hand signal, and only if necessary. 

In Halo's Puppy 2 class we were tested doing a sequence of sit/down/sit/stand/down/stand both with a verbal cue only and with a hand signal only to show proficiency with all 3 positions from each other position. Certain ones were definitely easier to teach than the others, so when we practiced I spent the most time on the harder ones. In your case that would be down from a stand rather than a sit. For me it was sit from a down rather than a stand. But you want to work on all the positions so he can't just assume what's coming next and do it before you ask for it, you want to be unpredictable.


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## darga19 (Mar 4, 2009)

Thanks guys! I'm going to have to get out the food again! We do 90% of training now with just a tug toy...which is a lot of fun. Don't worry though...he'll still love the turkey dogs I'm sure!

In addition to knowing the positions independent of the order...

It's when the dog goes into a 'down' right out of a heel, and you keep walking on without stopping. I may be missing something there but I believe that's the basic idea. I don't do competitions but I believe it's a competition type of exercise.


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## Cassidy's Mom (Mar 30, 2003)

That's the down in motion.


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## Samba (Apr 23, 2001)

Oh, that is a down out of motion or a moving down.

Either way, you will still need to teach the sphinx down first.

Thank goodness Cassidy's Mom is so good at verbalizing the progression of training. I am too lazy and a bad typist!!


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## darga19 (Mar 4, 2009)

> Originally Posted By: Cassidys MomThat's the down in motion.


Thank you!!










That's the name I was looking for. Gotta crawl before you can walk...start with the down out of a stand. Should be easy enough to do indoors. Is there an easy way to lure so I can force his lazy butt not to hit the ground first...i.e. go straight from a stand to a down?


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## Cassidy's Mom (Mar 30, 2003)

> Originally Posted By: SambaThank goodness Cassidy's Mom is so good at verbalizing the progression of training.


I've had a lot of recent practice, so it's all very fresh in my mind, lol!


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## Cassidy's Mom (Mar 30, 2003)

Christian, I've played around with the down in motion with Halo, but it's still definitely a work in process and I have no idea I'm even going about it the best way, so I'll leave it up to others with more experience to describe how to train it. 

But I would think that getting him to drop into an immediate down from standing position, particularly when he's at your side in heel position, would be an obvious first step before you even thing about the motion. Since he's already doing down from a sit and you want to discourage that, I would completely leave that out when doing drills, so you're only having him do stand/sit/stand and stand/down/stand sequences with maybe the occasional sit from a down tossed in for variety if you want. And mix it up so maybe it's sit/stand/down/stand/down/sit, that kind of thing. If he sits before going down, don't reward it.


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## Northern GSDs (Oct 30, 2008)

I think Cassidy's Mom has an excellent point about teaching the down from stationary before moving forward with introducing the down out of motion, especially since he wants to sit before downing. Also in what was said about not doing the sit and the down together - I think that alot of the time dogs are so context-specific that if they are taught an exercise from one postion only (eg sit then down) they may associate the command (down) as having to be done through the first one they learned (sit) before the "down" action. If that makes any sense - I'm not that great at explaining what I mean....

So I would also start from the beginnning and start re-teaching from a stand position first (if he doesn't know the stand command yet that's fine too, you may just need to provide some body guidance into a standing position to begin or better yet try to set thigns up so that he is in a standing posture and then teach the down from that position with a lure (eg treat). 

There was a thread that had some similar questions about the down in motion awhile back with some suggestions but I think there were also some suggestions about how to start the down before moving onto the motion exercise. Might have a couple extra little tidbits that may be helpful. I'll look for it and let's see if I post it right:

Down in Motion Thread 

I had a couple bookmarks that had some great little clips but since I fried my laptop with a coffee spill a couples weeks ago I've lost all my internet favorite links











> Quote: Is there an easy way to lure so I can force his lazy butt not to hit the ground first...i.e. go straight from a stand to a down?


How you present the lure (food or toy) can affect this motion. If you bring the lure up and back, that will encourage him to move into a sitting position. If you present the lure lower and either straight down or down-backwards, that will often help to bring the upper body downwards before the bum. Does that make any sense? Sometimes it can take some repeated efforts to work, especially if he's used to dropping back into the sit first.


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## Cassidy's Mom (Mar 30, 2003)

> Originally Posted By: Nicole LI think that alot of the time dogs are so context-specific that if they are taught an exercise from one postion only (eg sit then down) they may associate the command (down) as having to be done through the first one they learned (sit) before the "down" action.


Absolutely! It's so much easier to teach a young puppy to "down" from a sit position, so most of us start there. In fact, when I was trying to find a good youtube link that showed a lured down, all I could find was from a sit, not from a stand. (Okay, I didn't look THAT hard, lol!) 

But you've got to take that next step and teach them that down means to lay on the floor/ground, no matter what position they were in prior to that. And like I mentioned in my earlier post, my dogs have always been much better at sit from a stand position than sit from a down - to us it seems like the exact same thing, to plant their butt, but to them it's completely different. So I had to work harder at teaching that, and although they had immediate 100% accuracy to the sit command when they were standing, it was like starting all over from the down position. 

Nicole - ugh, I'd be lost without all my bookmarked sites!


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## Northern GSDs (Oct 30, 2008)

> Quote: Nicole - ugh, I'd be lost without all my bookmarked sites!


I know! I was MORTIFIED when it happened!!! All I could think about were the pictures I hadn't backed up yet and my internet bookmarks







Good news was that the hard drive survived although the laptop did not. Now I just have to take the time to transfer all my files on the new laptop


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## Samba (Apr 23, 2001)

http://leerburg.com/playem.htm?name=flv/8-6-09-news.flv


Video teaching all three positions...sit,down, stand... luring and hand positions. Avoid rock back sits and get great down from sit with a shoot the butt back down and shoot butt back stand from a sit.

I would get the down really solid before adding down out of motion and go slowly at that when you add it. I begin it stationary and then "running" in place so the dog begins to see the movement.


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## mjbgsd (Jun 29, 2004)

That's an interesting way to teach the stand, I never knew to teach it that way. Makes sense though.


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## Jason L (Mar 20, 2009)

That's how I am teaching Ike to stand. "Punch" him in the throat and he immediately kicks back into a stand LOL.


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## Samba (Apr 23, 2001)




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## IliamnasQuest (Aug 24, 2005)

My dogs learn "down from a stand" before they even learn sit. I've found that this down is learned very quickly and since it's a behavior that creates a bit of backwards movement, it translates into a moving down very easily (as all forward movement MUST stop in order for the dog to fold backwards). I have video somewhere of Khana doing the foldback (sphinx) down at the age of about four months.

One very important point is that the two types of down - the sphinx down, and the "down from a sit" which in my dogs is taught as a curl down (where they end up curled onto one hip) - are really two different behaviors and should be taught separately and with different commands. One down involves folding back onto the stomach, the other involves curling down onto a hip, which is more of a forward (front feet moving forward) type of movement. The sphinx-down is GREAT for the drop on recall, the down in motion and the utility (signal) down in utility competition. The hip-curl down is a great down for a long stay, as it's a comfortable position and a more relaxed one (dog is less likely to break that down). 

There are really valid reasons for teaching both downs even if you're never going to compete with your dog. 

Melanie and the gang in Alaska


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## Jason L (Mar 20, 2009)

Puppy Ike doing his version of the sphinx down (not recommended on hard surface)









http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c0_F6yqsP1c


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## Samba (Apr 23, 2001)

I only teach the sphinx down. When doing down stay in the ring, I have the dog go down from a stand. I never have them go down from a sit in the ring. Once they are down, I teach the hip roll on cue. 

I don't ever want them to think they can go to a down from a sit in the ring, so we don't practice doing that.


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## Cassidy's Mom (Mar 30, 2003)

> Originally Posted By: Jason LinPuppy Ike doing his version of the sphinx down (not recommended on hard surface)
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> 
> ...


That's how Halo does it too, especially at mealtimes - she slams herself to the floor so hard it must hurt!


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## Jason L (Mar 20, 2009)

Halo does it still? That must make quite a THUMP in the kitchen.

But that's what I thought when I saw the video myself. I knew he does a very fast down from the side but I didn't know how high he was raising his front legs before he slammed them down. Silly dogs.

Now if I can get that kind of speed from the front (where I am not able to make as fast a gesture as I can from the side) and then get it on just verbal, I would be happy.


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## Cassidy's Mom (Mar 30, 2003)

> Originally Posted By: Jason LinHalo does it still? That must make quite a THUMP in the kitchen.


The garage floor.


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## Jason L (Mar 20, 2009)

Ouch! Halo must like her food


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## Samba (Apr 23, 2001)

I think Ike does things for "emphasis", for sure!


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