Hi! I’m Melanie McLeroy with Taurus Training for Expert Village, and today we’re going to talk about training dogs. Now we’re ready to teach this Rottweiler how to lie down. As you can see she’s interested in everything off camera. So the first thing I need to do is to get her attention. Good girl, now that was an example of her offering me a behavior. I’m still going to mark it because that’s very nice manners. She’s deferring to me and indicating that she wants to work for me. So, Rottweilers and down…oh, your harness is falling down a little bit. There you go. Notice that I’m not really using any tools as I’m working with this dog. The leash is completely loose, and I simply have the harness on her to keep her from pulling as I take her in and out of the kennel. Good, again I had a nice eye contact. Now Ursa has been so responsive that I’m going to show you how to lure her down and then how to fade the lure. I’ll show her the treat, take it to the ground, down, good and once she’s completely down, then I mark it and give her the word. Now Rottweilers have the habit of sitting up on their haunches and kind of a sphinx or crouch position. Ursa is beautiful as going over on one hip. Okay, good girl. Now, I’m going to use a little less of a hand signal and see what I get. Down, good, now I didn’t give her a treat—I want it to be random. Okay, sit, good, down, good. She was a little bit slower there and stayed on her haunches, so I gave her a little help to get it over where I wanted her to go, good girl. Now I can give her the treat. Good girl, okay, sit. Now we’ll just try some body language, down, good. Remember the haunches, good girl, okay. Now since she has stayed on her haunches twice in a row, I’m going to get her down and use some body language, a little hand signal to get her off that haunch immediately. Down, good, very nice. Rottweilers are such lovely dogs, and if they know how to lie down you can take them just about anywhere. Right, Ursa?
bubbabooboo
Nov 14, 2009
