Once your dog knows how to down using a verbal cue, we want to teach them that your arm overhead is an another cue that means down. The benefit to the overhead signal for down is your dog can see it at a distance which is especially important for safety reasons.
How to Teach:
- Ensure your dog can quickly perform a down on a verbal cue.
- With your dog in a sit or stand give the new cue, your arm overhead, followed by the cue they know – verbal for down. Click your dog when they go down and give them a treat in a way that gets them up from the down.
- You can also use 2 treats, give one to your dog in the down, and use a second to lure them to standing.
- Repeat this several times; new cue followed by old cue.
- Your dog will start anticipating the down on the overhead arm cue, when this happens you can fade the verbal cue.