Small dog not going down

[PimMuter]

Hey folks,

So we have a small Welsh terrier and the "Down" training is flat out not working, I can imagine with a larger dog it will naturally lie down when following the treat as explained but with such a small dog she just walks after the treat as thats the easiest thing to do.

Any ideas?

[JMFS]

You can try covering the treat with your hand instead and lifting only when she lies flat. Praise praise praise, repeat.  Our dachshund also doesn't do the down very easily because her nubby little legs pretty much have her there already.  😄   Yours will probably paw, nose, and / or lick at your hand to release the treat, but hold steadfast and she should eventually lie down.  Here you're capturing the behavior instead of leading her to it.

[Adrienne]

Generally small dogs can be trained using the same method as large dogs, but sometimes for some reason or another we may occasionally stumble on small, medium or large dogs with an odd conformation or dogs who have some anxiety or quirk that makes traditional training methods not effective as we would hope. This is why I often emphasize how a cookie-cutter approach is not applicable to dog training considering that dogs are individuals and instructions manuals are more suitable for objects. This is also why we have the forums 🙂

Just the other day I stumbled on a dog with an unusual conformation that made training to lie down using traditional methods a little bit of a challenge. This dog is a Maltese with a long back. With her, I had to create  a "bridge" with my legs bent in front of me and get her to lie down by presenting a treat under my legs so that she would  assume the "Army crawl" position.  After getting the behavior,  I had to gradually fade reliance on my legs by getting her to perform the down with my legs set up higher and then farther away from them until the behavior became fluent enough for her to perform it without the aid of my legs. Please excuse the quality of the video, as it's difficult for me to film as I am working with a dog directly, but I hope you get the idea. 

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o2dCEQgEtZ0&feature=youtu.be

Alternatively, you can try working under a low bench. 

You can also try shaping. You can find how to use shaping in the troubleshooting the down section here where it says how to split the exercise into smaller components:

https://www.braintraining4dogs.com/members/brain-training/obedience-101/lie-down/

Another option is to use capturing where you praise and reward a natural behavior without the use of any prompts. Sit on the couch with your dog on leash and wait for her to get tired and lie down (this may work best when your dog is tired) . Once she lies down, say "yes!" or click the clicker and give a treat. Repeat several times (the behavior should increase once she starts associating the position with treats), then at some point, once the behavior starts getting more and more reliable, you can then move on to naming it. Simply say "down" right as your dog is lying down, praise and reward and then start saying it one split second prior to lying down and praise and reward. At some point, the behavior should start getting more and more reliable. 

Here's an example of capturing a down (in this case, I am not using a leash as this dog had issues with closeness to her face):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qwfz5BAbs54

I hope this helps!

Let me know how things work out for you. With some dogs, we need to think outside of the box, which is what makes training dogs never boring!

Best,

Adrienne