I have started reteaching Grey 'down' but this time by shaping. He was previously taught it by luring and clicker but it was clear he was not getting the vocal cue and more often than not, since he was 6 months old I had to crouch and coax him into a down. I obviously hadn't faded the lure correctly and he was dependent on it. So last night I started shaping him. Purely standing really still, and CT for the littlest movement down of his head and then more and more until he was all the way down. He was so cute and clearly got it. He was so perfectly in the same position each time and I didn;t request this of him. I would have been happy to just reward his down, but he wanted to be in the exact same movement. To me this showed me how much he was thinking about it rather than just going for the treat under his nose. We did a couple of 3 min sessions. By today's I had just started adding the vocal cue. I tried it outside in the courtyard and he didn't get it. So we started again from the beginning and he quickly got to giving full downs. Will try and firm it up tomorrow.
Other than that we did more lead training up on the top at Botany Bay. I had hoped he would find it less distracting on the footpath, but I think it was too close to the field he goes off lead on. I really need to find a boring bit of road, but I don't have one near my house. It's really busy here and everytime I go anywhere in the car it gets him hyped up.
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