How To Teach A Stubborn Dog To Lay Down

Boomer (French Bulldog) has a hard time with "Down." He doesn't want to go down, but when he does, he doesn't want to STAY down. So we're helping him out with that.

We broke the exercise into its smallest parts. So, you'll notice that the first thing we're asking is for a "bow" (bend his front half on the ground), and we rewarded that a few times. Then, once he started to get that, we only rewarded when he was actually in the "Down" position. We were only looking for a second of him being down, and then we rewarded him. You'll notice that we're basically just luring him down and immediately giving him the treat. But, as he gets that, then we're pulling the treat away and asking him to wait a second in that position. You'll notice that we're pulling the treat TOWARDS us, so he isn't tempted to stand up to try and get it. That's why we're practicing while seated.

As we move forward, we can start extending how long he has to wait before getting his reward. Then, we can start doing it from a kneeling position, and finally a standing position. For some dogs, "Down" is a challenging thing, but as long as we're patient, they'll get it. We also have a number of different ways we could teach it, if this didn't work out, but this is working just fine. We're so proud of this little Frenchie. 🐶❤