Teaching Your Dog to Lay Down

This is a little more difficult then sit. As always with teaching your dog, rewarding improperly will lead to problems in obedience training.

1. Take your treat and have your dog sit. Give your dog a treat and praise them so they know that this trick gets a reward.

2. Have them focus on the treat and close your hand around the treat. Slowly drop your hand to the ground and have the dog follow it with it’s nose. Say “Down” and the dog should go down while following your hand.

3. If your dog went down and didn’t attack your hand, then reward and praise. If he attacked your hand, say “No” and repeat. The dog should not lunge unnecessarily at your hand, or you might lose a finger or two. Wait until the dog calms down, and try again.

4. If the dog didn’t go down, you need to correct the behavior. Either pull its front paws towards you and lay them down, or pull down on his leash until he’s in the laying down position.

5. A good technique for the smaller dog owner, is to sit down with the dog. Position your legs straight ahead of you and bend the knee closest to your dog upwards. There should be a triangle sized gap under your leg. Entice your dog with the treat so he goes under the leg. While the dog is moving towards the treat, slowly straighten your leg to push your dog into the laying position, while saying “Down.” Reward and praise.

6. As your dog gets better at laying down, reduce the reward frequency and rely just on verbal praising. This will allow you to have him laying down in non-training situations.