breaking the long down - Page 1

 i was just curious how some of you fix the problem of a dog breaking the long down.  

 Tell me what you have done to train it and perhaps I can make some suggestions. How old is the dog? 

Yes, I think we need more info.  ie: age of dog and circumstances in which the dog is breaking the long down.  Also, how far away are you, is the dog off lead, etc. etc. 

 i was just looking for suggestions in general, but i see how that might be difficult.

in my case though, my dog is 15 months old.  i vary the distances, sometimes he is on a long line, sometimes just on a 6 foot leash that i leave next to him.  he's getting much better.  only breaks sometimes if there's a dog on the field doing something really fun.  otherwise he just sniffs around sometimes, or flops side to side like he's bored.  and sometimes when i come back to get him he gets a little excited and sits too early.

i'm very happy with his progress, but i was just wondering how other people train/fix the long down.

thanks guys for your interest, i look forward to what you have to say.

Couple things,...

#1 rule if the dog breaks the long down, you have gone too far too fast, go back to the beginning and start all over

One mistake people make is always doing the recall after the down in motion and they don't realize that can and usually will mess up the long down. You should return to your dog more and reward at the dog. Less recalls. When you are working on a long down, reward with food or the ball between the dogs front feet while the dog is down. You can repeat platz or down a 100 times in the beginning if you need to, just a verbal reminder. Platz the dog, leave the dog, return to the dog, reward while dog is in platz with reward between his.her front paws, step away again. Repeat A LOT. As the dog learns that the reward comes from you when you return to the dog, you can increase distance and duration.

Remember it is difficult to correct from a distance. Your best and most affective corrections in a long down will occur when you are 6, 10, 15ft away while the dog is on leash. Any flip flopping, sniffing the ground and such should get a NO PLATZ. As soon as the dog does a few seconds of platz correctly, walk up, saying platz (verbal reminder until the dog KNOWs the command and can do it 90 % of the time) Stand next to dog, bend down and place food between paws, Good boy! Platz, step out and repeat.  Remember to break the training with lots of ball or tug play as a reward for correct behavior in the exercise.

If you get 5 seconds of a solid attentive platz, that is excellent. All 10 minute long downs begin with 5 seconds of a long down. If you go too far too fast, you are causing more problems. If other dogs are a distraction during the long down, then you need to be closer to the dog to make the corrections faster, and to offer rewards faster for correct behavior.

Often times while others are on the field doing obedience, my dog will be in a long down, and for 10 or 15 minutes. She might get 20 pieces of cheese during that time. She also gets a few NO PLATZ, as she likes to sniff.

I also have a question on the long down.  

My boy is good on the long down, but he whines constantly.  Should the whining be discouraged, or if his down is solid, should it be ignored?

Becky

 thank you deeswolf

The whining should be discouraged as best you can.  Is he whining looking at you or whining looking at the other dogs working?   Example, my male who was always very calm in the long down was whining and anxious for our last trial.  We did lose points for it, just goes to prove ANYTHING can happen in trial.  LOL

I agree with Deeswolf, very good points explained well.  (good job)

I too have used food to show long down is ok.  I spent a VERY long time working in teeny increments and it was well worth it. I don't know how many times I wish I had brought a book or chair when she started to do very long downs.  She will now long down with dogs running by or coming within a couple feet.  I really reward that and I still occasionally give a treat when downing and never recall from the down.  I learned that one the hard way.  She is close to 3 years old.

Good luck

 My funniest long down story was when Kaos during his BH routine proceeded to stand up, dig a hole like mad, and then on the other handlers down in motion command lay down. You would have never known he broke it, until sitting him where there were all these scratch marks under him:-)

When I teach a stay (in sport of course there's no actual stay command, but it's taught the same nonetheless) there are three components to it (or the "3 D's"). There is the amount of time the dog is required to stay there (duration), the amount of distance you are from the dog, and the amount of distractions going on around the dog (duration, distance, distraction). If you increase all 3 at the same time you set yourself and the dog up for failure, and any attempt to correct the dog for breaking is unfair. (I see corrections as very fair, as long as you've taken the time to train the behavior and the dog KNOWS what the deal is, and then the corrections are tempered to fit the dog). So I work on each component separately while decreasing the other two until they're all built up. And distance is ALWAYS last on the work list. If you don't have the dog solid with duration and distractions, distance is pointless and sets him up to fail. 

As an example, when teaching a long down/down stay. I first build the time the dog is required to stay still with minimal distractions and no distance whatsoever. Lets say I get up to a minute. Then I will add heavier distractions but decrease my duration to 30 seconds so I can focus solely on the distraction (again no distance). Next I may do 5 minutes with minimal distraction and no distance (usually all this at home so not to waste time on the field). Next maybe 3 minutes with heavy distraction and no distance. I work up to 15 minutes with heavy distraction (heavier then you might run into on the training field, I don't just do another dog playing, I do things at home like dropping food near the dog, walking around and over him, people or dogs playing with toys closeby etc. AFTER they're pretty solid with that, THEN I add the distance as the final component.

My old demo dogs used to stay on a long down in class situations for 1-2 hours and I'd call them out to work them then send them back. I was thinking about this today, I need to get back to my training like I did the dogs of old. 

So it sounds like you added distance before you added distraction.