Transition to verbal cue

[RAY]

Willa and I have been working on "down." She follows the hand gesture every time and the lure is faded. But for some reason she just won't respond to the verbal cue even though we have practiced it time and time and time again. It was far faster getting her to learn to "down" in the first place. So here's what I do: With clicker and treats in my left hand and both hands behind my back, I say "prone", followed quickly by the hand gesture with my right. When she is down I click and treat. But she has yet to respond to the verbal cue alone. If you're wondering, I use "prone" because she already sort of understands "down" as meaning "off." Any suggestions? Thank you

[RAY]

18 hours later: On our first attempt this morning, Willa responded to the verbal cue perfectly. I rewarded her generously. None of the many subsequent attempts were successful. 

[RAY]

She finally got it. Monday, I noticed she was eying my right side waiting for my hand to come around, so I started putting it flat against my chest. Tuesday morning, she was perfect every time, and was still perfect this morning. I don't know if moving my right hand to the front actually made the difference, but I'm relieved that we can finally move on to other skills.

[Adrienne Farricelli]

Hi there!

I am glad you got this sorted out! It's often a matter of practicing more and more until the behavior is quite fluent and then we can ask several quick downs with verbal cue first, hand gesture right after and then in the midst of them, use only verbal cue. Sometimes, in cases where the dog still struggles, we can still help by making the hand gesture, but making it less and less visible and pronounced each time.   For future reference, here is how the process looks like: