# How to teach fast drop?



## laffi (Jan 26, 2008)

Mine two are competing in agility and we are starting training for competitive obedience. Laffi (my golden) knows how to drop and she is not fast. As a matter of fact she is very very slow. 

I am a perfectionist and want a super fast drop. :hyper:

What are the best ways to teach it?


----------



## hotel4dogs (Sep 29, 2008)

The way we teach it starts from next to the dog. You make a game out of it, dog on leash, leash held close to you. Start out at a fast walk, not necessarily heeling, but keeping dog next to you, and then suddenly say DOWN and force the dog down with the leash (hope I'm explaining this ok). LOTS and LOTS of praise and a treat when the dog drops. Do that about 5 or 6 times and then let it go. Make it very upbeat and fun.
After a couple of days of doing that, you'll find the dog drops down real fast each time you say DOWN. Now it's time to move in front of the dog instead. Heel the dog for a short distance, then stop and give the stand command (since you're doing a drop on recall, I assume your dog can do a novice stand). Move out in front of the dog, just a couple of feet, facing the dog. Now give the same DOWN command. It's perfectly okay to use your hand to give a down signal, since this will also become the basis for the Utility signal exercise, and to step in with your foot toward the dog when you are first teaching it because that teaches the dog to drop backwards instead of forward. Again reward the real fast drops. It's a natural extension for the dog to do it fast if they've been doing it fast from next to you. Work farther and farther away from the dog, until you reach the end of your 6 foot leash. Any time you see a slow response, go back to also doing the drop from next to the dog. Finally, you will be able to work farther and farther away.
Don't be surprised by slow drops when you first start doing it as part of the recall. The dog is used to the Novice recall, and needs to process the information that there's a drop coming, so most of them will temporarily slow down when you first add the drop in. They get past that in time.
Hope this made some sense, and that it helps out.


----------



## katieanddusty (Feb 9, 2006)

Use a treat held sort of between her paws (it takes a bit to figure out the best spot) to get her to fold backwards into the down instead of sitting and then going down. I trained my young dog with that from the beginning (never had him go from sit to down until he had a solid fold-back down) and he always does a really fast drop. With my older dog who was trained with pulling down on the leash and had a long history of slow downs or refusing to down, it was more of a challenge. I have found that he does the fold-back drop best if he's excited. Make it a game - run around getting her excited and then stop and lure her into a down. Or if she has tricks that she's really excited about doing (like spinning or barking), have her do those and then lie down. Eventually just hearing the command got my boy a little bit excited and got a nice fast down (switch to a different word that means fast fold-back drop and only give it if you know that's what she's going to do).


----------



## laffi (Jan 26, 2008)

katieanddusty said:


> Use a treat held sort of between her paws (it takes a bit to figure out the best spot) to get her to fold backwards into the down instead of sitting and then going down. I trained my young dog with that from the beginning (never had him go from sit to down until he had a solid fold-back down) and he always does a really fast drop. With my older dog who was trained with pulling down on the leash and had a long history of slow downs or refusing to down, it was more of a challenge. I have found that he does the fold-back drop best if he's excited. Make it a game - run around getting her excited and then stop and lure her into a down. Or if she has tricks that she's really excited about doing (like spinning or barking), have her do those and then lie down. Eventually just hearing the command got my boy a little bit excited and got a nice fast down (switch to a different word that means fast fold-back drop and only give it if you know that's what she's going to do).


Thank you so much! I use clicker training and luring, so I don't want to use the leash to teach her a fast drop. I have the identical problem like your older dog (coz when I started training I didn't know much about it and used more old-fashioned methods ) so your advice sounds great. I will also change the cue so the new fast drops will not be the sleepy drops from sit.

Thank you heaps!


----------



## katieanddusty (Feb 9, 2006)

Glad it helped! Also if she ever does the play bow sort of thing, either while playing or stretching, I would praise/reward that a lot. I figured out that whenever I go into a certain room Dusty will stretch and then fold into a down out in the hallway, so I started going crazy over him whenever he did that. If you already have a nice play bow on cue as a trick, it'd be even easier to just add putting the rear end down.

Does she have trouble on the table in agility, or just on the ground?


----------



## laffi (Jan 26, 2008)

katieanddusty said:


> Glad it helped! Also if she ever does the play bow sort of thing, either while playing or stretching, I would praise/reward that a lot. I figured out that whenever I go into a certain room Dusty will stretch and then fold into a down out in the hallway, so I started going crazy over him whenever he did that. If you already have a nice play bow on cue as a trick, it'd be even easier to just add putting the rear end down.
> 
> Does she have trouble on the table in agility, or just on the ground?


She is slow on the ground and on the table  because she always goes through the sit and extends to down.
Btw in my agility association ADAA, where I compete, the dog is allowed to sit on the table, that's why it has never been a real problem.


----------

