Week 1

•  Practice with a Barrier
• Practice by placing your dog on a tether and moving away
• Practice on a Bed, Mat, or Platform
• If your dog knows how to Target his or her feet, practice with a Target

NOTE:Get your dog out of the habit of doing the behavior right in front of you. Adding distance, duration, and distractions are all a part of the generalization process. We are teaching your dog to Sit and Down as soon as you ask for it, regardless of where you are, where he/she is, or what your dog is doing at the present moment. We don’t want Sit to mean that your dog travels across a yard or a room to Sit a foot away from you.

• In class we practiced teaching your dog to transition from a Sit to a Stand by standing very close to your dog with one leg about a foot in front of your dog. The reason we are standing so close is because when your dog transitions from a Sit to a Stand, we do not want him or her to be able to take multiple steps forward. The Stand cue should be a change in position and it should not include your dog continuing to move toward you. Standing in front of your dog with your right leg a foot in front of your dog, place a treat at your dog’s nose.
• Take one step back with the front leg (the leg directly in front of your dog’s chest and/or feet. The hand holding the treat should remain at your dog’s nose, but also move backward with your leg as you take that step back. As the dog follows the food and transitions into a Stand, mark the behavior and reward. Give your dog the Release cue after reinforcement is given.
• Try this again with multiple treats in your hand. The reason we want you to hold onto multiple treats is because we are going to reinforce your dog multiple times for maintaining the Stand before giving the Release cue. Ideally, your dog will not be able to shift forward or walk forward because your body will be blocking him or her. As the dog raises up into the stand position, begin marking the behavior with “Yes” and delivering a treat to the mouth. Follow up with several additional marks and rewards if your dog’s feet stay planted to the ground. Give the Release cue when you are ready to Release. Try this from a Down position before moving onto the next Step.
• Do this over and over from a Sit or Down position, reinforcing your dog with anywhere from 2-6 treats (i.e., all from your hand), marking before every reward. Follow up with the Release cue. When you notice that your dog has kept his or her feet perfectly still for 8 repetitions in a row, you may now move onto the next step.
• Slow down the rate of reinforcement to see if your dog can remain in a Stand without moving his or her feet. It may be easiest to practice this on an elevated surface like a thick dog bed, a training platform, or a piece of furniture that your dog is allowed to comfortably stand on. If you are doing this on a flat surface and your dog is no longer able to keep his or her feet planted, go back a step and increase your rate of reinforcement. Some dogs and humans get stuck at this point and have a hard time shifting into a Stand while keeping their feet still. For this, I would transition them to an elevated surface to prevent them from being able to walk forward.
• Take a bigger step back with the right leg and see if your dog can still keep his or her feet planted without moving forward. If your dog struggles with this, go back a step and practice remaining close enough to your dog that he or she cannot move forward. Continue to slow down your rate of reinforcement while on this step until you are delivering the treats every 3-5 seconds.
• The hand cue can be anything you want it to be, but it is best to make sure that it doesn’t look like your Hand Target cue so that your dog doesn’t get confused. We recommend transitioning the luring hand cue that you started with to a curved hand with your knuckles facing toward your dog and your pinky being the closest finger to the floor. You will know that your dog fully understands the hand cue when you are able to cue the behavior without an elevated surface and he or she is able to transition from a Down or a Sit into a Stand position with feet planted. Once your dog is able to do this, you can then begin teaching the verbal cue.
• Just like before, when we add the verbal cue, we will rely on the New cue before Old cue rule. “N” comes before “O” in the alphabet. If you are finding that your dog is having a hard time keeping his or feet planted, feel free to go back a step and use an elevated platform. In order to fade out elevated platforms, we recommend slowly transitioning to flatter targets, such as mats. If you have any questions about this, please feel free to ask your Instructor.

• Food in hand (close hand if your dog goes for the treats)
• Food in container (drop treat back into the container if your dog goes for it when you reach for the treat)
• Food out of container on the floor (put treat back in the container if your dog goes for it on the floor)
• No container; dropping it or moving it around on the floor (pick it up and start over if your dog goes for it)
• Dropping it from higher heights gradually (pick it up and start over if your dog goes for it)
• Tossing it at them (your dog should not be attempting to steal the treats at this point)