Puppy learning the down? I've tried the motivational approached and the direct, went back to the motivational at the prompting of this board. The puppy is 6.5 months now still very much a puppy basic commands are fair on leash. Because of some disclipine problems she doesn't want to "come" like she use to. The problem was that when it time to go into the fence she wants to stay out and play. I've had to corner her grab her by her collar and take her to the gate.

Now when I call her she want run, but she will try ignore me. Once I called her I could see her ussually she comes running and jumping. I walked around the corner and she had her head stuck in the garage, when I called her she looked over her shoulder and continued looking straight ahead. Of course I was pissed off. I leashed her and it was time for some hard OB, I asked her to sit, she did then asked her to "Down" no hand gesture. I jsut raised my foot. She hadn't seen this since she was 3 months old. She did a perfect down, I praised her, she nipped at my hand. We heeled did a turnabout a verbal "down" again she hit it, she sit then I asked her to down, she jumped up wanting to play, I tug the leash and raised my foot slightly issued the "down" command and again a perfect down.

She was playing Me, she knew what I wanted all along, I'm assuming or did the light just come on in her little stubborn head?

I'll get the recall back together with some treats and praises but what do you think is happening with this down.

Did she remember the signal/foot on leash from 2 days of that training which I stopped at the incouragement of you guys. She will now do a down on verbal command on leash, I'm close.

Same thing happened to my dog, he had pretty good ob until he was about 6-7 months. The it was like one morning he woke up with amnesia - wouldnt recall wouldnt sit wouldnt down - little shi* would just look at you like he never heard the command in his life.
So i went back to basics but this time i added a reinforcement eg
The sit - now he knows what that means.
If i asked him to sit and he wouldnt i would give him a pop on on the leash or flank him and make him sit - no treat - he was going to sit because i asked him to not for what would be in it for him. Funny but he soon remembered what those commands meant.
It seems in your case that she knows the command but chooses not to obey - you have to make her choose to obey.
JMO but it worked for me.

I (and other people I train with) have noticed how dogs will more or less willingly learn something, be performing it successfully, and suddenly act like they've never heard it before in their lives. Seems to happen no matter what stage of training you're in.

A lot of the people I train with start green dogs and train straight through utility before the dogs are ever shown, so they spend a lot of time in training. And typically they are not knot-head dogs, they are ones chosen for willingness, trainability and bidability that you don't necessarily see in dogs bred for other sports.

We don't know why willing dogs would suddenly act like they never heard a command before. It wasn't teenage behaviour, they were typically well past that age, and if you look in their faces (at least in the beginning, if you don't go right in to harsh correction) you can see they honestly didn't remember, they literally act like they never heard it before.

What's even more interesting is the same do would remain willing and up for doing other things without contention! Say they would quit a reliable down, but would happily work retrieves or jumps or articles.

We also notices that while it doesn't happen to all dogs at the same time, it seems to have a consistant "cycle" for a particular dog. We saw that dogs "forgot" things they learned sometime around 21 to 35 days AFTER they initially mastered the task. What they learned seems to be "gone" for a week or 10 days.

If left alone and not worked, they would recover the knowledge within a week or so. We stop training the "problem" exercize and move on to something else. When you hit on the thing they are confused about, treat it like a new exercize.

What makes this rough on dogs and owners is the time for the brief "forgetting" also coincides with the start of adolecense, so it can look like teenager naughtiness. But it's not, and you can really damage your working relationship with the dog by beating them through it.

The key for me is the reluctance or amnesia on one or two things, combined with continued willingness to learn and perform other exercizes.

If you look back, I think you will see that the time-frame is about right, especially since she went down fast and willingly for a signal she'd learned earlier.

I don't know why this happens, but it seems to be more evident in smart dogs, probably because they can learn a complete task in a short time, so when they "forget" they lose the whole task and not just parts (like a dumb dog would).

We think maybe it happens when what the dog has learned is passing from short-term to long-term memory and is temporarily "without an index".

I'd experiment with it and see if she doesn't recover the down on her own in a week or two.

why on earth do you fellas seem to think it is necessary to put "formal" obedience on pups at this young age? too much compulsion too young takes the drive right out of them, creates problems and a lack of joy for the work.

What I meant to say, and don't think I was clear, is owners typically start obedience training at 3 to 6 months, which means that when they forget stuff 2 - 3 months later (2 or more weeks for fully learning the behavior + the 21 to 35 days to reach the forgetting point), the dog is just the right age to have the "snotty teenager" finger pointed at them.

But it happened to our dogs, young or old, whether teenagers or not.

I don't use compulsion to teach, and the longer I train, the less I use for correction. Typically compulsion is for major sins only <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

The dogs that have given me the highest scores (conistant 197+ out of 200) are the ones that spent the first year of their life learning to live with people and didn't start any kind of precision training until later.

I think they start so early because they think there's less contention.

I don't think there's anything wrong with luring even very young puppies into learning sits, downs, etc. But there's no compulsion in that.

i have to agree with stephan. motivational learning for at least the first year. compulsion used very sparingly after that. obviously you have encountered problems or you wouldn't be posting here. why bother asking for input when you are determined to cling to your own methods anyway?

 Quote:

Originally posted by Tim Leigh:
Because he he was previously trained by reward - which taught him the command - So if he knows the command and decides to ignore it i will reinforce it end of story.
And it hasnt taken any drive out of him and he loves the work more and more everyday.
Reinforcing your command nips ignorance in the bud. Simple

That is something i almost did. Luckilly i was stoped at a time.
Starting to early with formal obediance (yea i started positive only) and you have dog that by 6 moths knows commands and you "should" than move to profing phase(teach dog that it is not only fun to obey, but that he MUST obey). But 6 mo is too young for that.

If you are lucky enough to have tough dog he might not show any loss in drive, but most ppl are not that lucky(or have skill for that). So, kudos to your dog, but that is wrong advice you gave.

Hi Don

I think you said "she" was around 6.5 months. I currently have a girl of 7.5 months. Many females have their first pseudo-heat around this time, and their teeth are still coming in, so you can expect some weirdness.

I train mostly with food at this age, if my female ignores me or goes running around the place, I put her back in her crate. Usually after she has seen our other dogs do their work and get their dinner, she remembers her commands just fine!

I keep her on leash at all times, because she is very independent and doesn't have a recall. With pups that aren't sensitive, like my current girl, I do add a little bit of hands-on to the down, just because I think it is a very important command, (saved one of my other dogs' life when she got loose and began running towards the road), but basically I ignore her when she is being goofy, and dream of when she turns a year old. At that point (if she is mature enough), I begin to add "you must" to her commands.

It really does depend on the dog though, my last female pup I trained had such high pack drive and loved her food and ball, I never really needed to be stern with her, this current one is a little different! She is willful, hard-headed, the most solid nerve I have ever seen, and couldn't care less where I am! I think she is our 3 year-old Golden Retriever's long lost sister, only he was much more interested in food. He decided at around a year, that he didn't want to work, he got several tries a day, was asked to do something simple that he had already learned. Kept goofing off and being put back in his crate, until the 5th day, when he finally decided he was hungry enough to work. He achieved CDX and OB3 and had 12 tries at UD, but thought that the audience would enjoy watching him dancing round the ring more than doing a passing routine. The hardest dog I know - tritronics level 6, he would just squint a little, and then do the flashiest, happiest schutzhund heeling you ever saw!

Louise