Go to Place with Feeding in Down (Training Day 5) (Patreon)

In this "place" session I start feeding in the down position. So I mark once he gets to place, but then feed after luring him into the down position. The goal is that Denver will think "oh, she always feeds me in the down, I should go to place and lay down!"

Note that I specifically use "place" as a go there and lay down behavior. If you don't intend to use it for down, you don't want to create the behavior chain of going to place and laying down.

Cautionary Tale:

Notice also that this session goes on for too long (3 minutes). I get greedy at the 2 minute mark when he auto-downs, and should have ended the session there. The behavior deteriorates and I help him get the correct answer, but it would have been a better session if I ended on the 2 minute mark and let him marinate on the session and come back to it tomorrow. That's all to say, sometimes it's hard to know when the right place to end is, and trainers make mistakes and get greedy too! It's also why recording your training is helpful in identifying how you can be a better trainer tomorrow :)

Happy Training ya'll!