I have decided to teach Whippy a new command.

[D0oinMeCleanin]

I have posted before about the time I taught her sit and how it took three months after that I gave up because she is just so nervous of trying new things.

She's is going to learn "down". It might until this time next year but she will learn.

We've just done session 1. 30 treats (her breakfast chopped into tiny bits) she is still on lowering her head slightly with a lure. We get about a 1cm movement before she seems to think "Oh, you don't want me to take the treat, you keep moving it away. Okay, I'll just sit here looking confused and nervous until you take pity on me"

I'm not moving the lure to quick, it is literally glued to her nose the whole time. She is actually licking it while she moves but all of a sudden she just stops and sits up and looks dejected.

We may need some encouragement to keep us focused

You could be describing SpicyDog there. I have to have breaks where we don't try as I can't take the sad confused face!

It has taken us 11 months but we can now sometimes lure her into a full down, but only on something soft and she holds it exactly as long as it takes to get the food. If we keep going another year maybe she'll do it on command...

Pupcake2 was exactly the same. We spent ages working on sit before eventually teaching her specifically to lure. I think I posted on a lab-specific forum and got various bits of advice. What really worked was running backwards holding the treat out and acting all excited (sort of a recall but with me moving too), and I would feed her when she reached me. I ran all over the place like a loon getting her to follow, and eventually she got the idea. Even now if I pinch my fingers together like I'm holding a treat she immediately targets to my hand. Made teaching sits / downs / stands a lot easier!
Pupcake2 was a rescue - ex puppy farm breeder. We think they had tricked her with food and he lure "instinct" had broken as a result.

Whilst we taught her how to lure we took advantage of when she sat / lay down anyway, and just told her the command as she was doing it before giving her a small reward (which she usually ran away from, but she did get the idea eventually!).

Good luck with your downs! We're trying to teach twist now, but have actually managed to teach her to walk backwards. Oh well, it's still progress.

Oh the sad face is awful isn't it? I use lots of encouraging noises while she is following the lure but it makes no difference. She just spends the entire time looking confused and slightly alarmed.

Dooin - I think we've about cracked 'sit' in around 7 weeks... mistlehound sees the treat, then focuses on your face and very gradually goes backwards into a sit... Its quite a difficult manoeuvre as there's so much back to go backwards and she ends up a long way away from the treat - but we've got there (at least when she's wanting the treat!). 'Down' comes more naturally to her as she normally does from standing straight into a down - but she's certainly not connected the word and the action yet.

Our next aim is to get a doorbell she can press when she wants to go out - because she's the most un-vocal dog I have come across and its very difficult to catch the signs and get her out into the garden before her 2 years of non-housetraining kick in... Still, things are improving on that front, most of the time.

Try it the other way - when she lays down of her own accord - say the word down and give her a treat (you need to have some in your pocket). That way she might start to associate the word with the action and that it is a good thing.

Oh teaching luring is a good idea. I did show her the target stick last night but she sort of went "omfg! A shiny stick with a ball on the end it might do something. I should hide under the table until it goes away"

D0oin that is Pupcake2's go to response! Either that or bark at it and run away. She's brilliant at sendaways though. Presumbably because she likes running away from things.

If you have a set of weave poles (or anything you can stick in the ground) we found that really good for consolidating the luring, but that came much later!

cupcakes ours is ex-breeder too and it had never occurred to me they might have misused lures but it would make a lot of sense given how long it took her to trust us waving food at her! We taught sit purely throckenholt's capture way, but she never goes into a traditional down stance of her own accord.

Let us know how you get on D0oin. A bit of resource competition with the puppy has helped us no end with lure training so DH and I have been training a dog each in the same room when we can! Would that help?

I've never bothered with 'down'...with a dachshund its not significantly enough different from 'sit' to be worth the effort

The 'capture' method is what they use to train sheepdogs, isn't it? Sounds like an ace idea so long as they do exhibit the desired behaviour naturally.

Wish I could teach mine 'shut the fuck up' ...

I've had her in the room while I was clicker training Devil Dog things he already knew, if you show him a clicker he automatically runs through all his commands in the hope that one will earn him a click, so we'd click him for sitting, while whippy watched, it made no difference, we even lured him into positions he already knew while dd1 was luring whippy, that didn't help.

I do use capturing. It's how I trained Devil Dog to rub his nose in a kinda sheepish way when you tell him "bad dog" although that is something we are still working on he is doing it more often.

Whippy never goes into a down. Using capturing to teach her to hide or curl in a ball would be easy.

She's having a very stressful week, bless her, she has got a new crate which is terrifying. She can't even look at it let alone sleep in it. I woke up this morning to find her laid on my pillow again DH wasn't sure where to put her to bed when she wouldn't go in her crate so just brought her to bed with him

She doesn't really need any commands, she never actually does anything. Ever. At all. So she never misbehaves. I just want to teach her something for the sake of it and thought down would be easy

Hmmm, tricky! The books really don't cover these sorts of dogs either! Poor whippy with no bed though. SpicyDog was terrified of crates until she saw the pup enjoying his. She kept getting in it so she has her own now, which she goes in when she needs space and cuddles a worn t-shirt.

You can borrow the pup if you like. SpicyDog never did anything until he came along. In the last month, led by the pup, she has started chewing things from my beside table, digging holes in the lawn and jumping up at the dining table. Secretly I love her being a bit more cheeky, but I'm working very hard not to show her that.

No they don't do they? If I ever get Whippy trained I might write a book entitled "How to train a dog who is scared to do anything, even luring"

I'm going to have a second attempt shortly. Will work on teaching her luring first.