Quote Originally Posted by Snowshoe View Post
I guess this dog is an adult or he would not be able to reach your chest? Or at least not a baby puppy?

1. Are you teaching STAY? We taught SIT. Then we taught STAY where we increased the time the sit was held. Then we went back to expecting the dog to hold a SIT without being told STAY. Our trainer liked this sequence, saying teach the duration part as a STAY seemed to help them learn to hold the SIT longer. Then the STAY was applied to DOWN. When teaching the STAY we used a release word (FREE for us) which was applied when we extended the duration of the Sit without using Stay. If this sounds confusing I can try again. LOL

2. Yes, I think you might inadvertently be teaching him UP (my word is HUG) always follows a sit if that's the only time you use it. I have two words. HUG means he can jump on me. I will invite a hug at any old time I feel like I want one and I do use it as a reward after a well done exercise but that exercise is not always Sit. Plus I have hand and body signals for when I use it as a reward. FEET means don't you dare hug me. FEET means feet on the floor. It took a while but I am confident Oban knows these words because I can tell him to do one or the other to another person who might not necessarily be right beside us.

Does that help? There are some different ideas up above and we've obviously come from training where different sequences were used.

Oh, and we trained SIT and DOWN in particular by luring, which became a hand signal. And the hand signal was learned before the verbal. In Oban's first class our instructions were quite specific. We were NOT to even say the word till we were so confident the hand signal would be complied with that we would bet our neighbour $50 the dog would do it. Then we could start the word. Our trainer said dogs, most animals, are far more attuned to body language than verbal language so learning the hand signal first was easier for them. Worked for us and everyone in our class.
100% agree with all of this.