-
Teaching Lay Down to a Blind Dog!
Hi friends! As most of you know, my boy Stanley is fully blind, which always proves interesting when training because dogs are so visual. We’ve been working on lay down recently, and it’s been a challenge to increase the difficulty. We’re working towards getting him to go just off of the verbal cue, but it’s been difficult. Our progression so far has been guiding him down with a lure, which he’s had down pat for months now, and recently we moved to just a little tap on his nose in a downward motion which he’s also gotten…it’s been the next step of moving away from a physical touch prompt to just cue that’s been difficult.
But today I had a revelation!! I discovered that if I do the “nose touch” prompt close to his nose but not actually touching, he can physically feel the breeze caused by my hand movement, and he takes his cue from this!! I thought this was sooooo fascinating and exciting.
-
3 Replies
-
Oh @madeline-pape , you and Stanley are both adorable — thanks for sharing that video clip! ????
When trying to segue to a verbal cue alone, have you been saying the word and then pausing briefly before giving the physical signal? It seems, when giving the two cues simultaneously, the verbal tends to not be discerned by the dog.
Looking forward to more Stanley stories! ????
-
I’m with you, @madeline-pape – fascinating and exciting! ???????? I love figuring out interesting training problems and you and Stanley clearly had a break through here. This is awesome work, thank you so much for sharing the video.
-
Whhhhatttt!??? Oh how cool ???? what a great idea on how to teach a down.
Log in to reply.