Category: Getting Started, Puppy Stuff ¤
  Author: Shirley Chong ¤
   Title: Teaching a "Settle" ¤

  Anna Persson asked how I shape a settle. I, too, will soon have an active
Boxer puppy to play with for a few months (his mother thinks I'll be
training him.... boy is SHE deluded! <LOL> Good thing his mother is Isabel
who understands what I mean <G>). I am SOOOOO EXCITED!
   Okay, training a settle. The way I usually do it is to choose a 
mat or blanket for the dog to lie on--later, I can move this around the
room and even on the furniture, as a signal to the dog when it's okay to be
on the furniture and when not. Having a mat also keeps my eye
honest--doesn't let me start accepting encroachment.
   First I use the clicker to shape lying on the mat. First click for any
foot on the mat, then two feet on the mat, then three feet, then four feet.
Then click for head lowering, front legs buckling, etc., until I've shaped
a down on the mat. 
   If the dog already knows a down command, then I just shape the dog into
going onto the mat and use the down command.
   Then it's just a matter of gradually extending the time the dog lies on
the mat before I click, starting with one second and working up to half an
hour or so.
   With a very active young dog, I'll stack the deck in my own favour. I'll
use food as my reinforcer (tends to calm dogs) and I'll wait to start
working on the settle until the dog is somewhat tired out anyway. And then
(such is the way my evil mind works) I'll try to make lying on the mat the
most inviting thing in the world. Once the dog knows that the behaviour is
to go and flop down on the mat to get clicked, I'll start out by doing a
bunch of very short downs--just down/click/toss treat, down/click/toss
treat, etc. Why? Because I've learned from herding that one of the most
physically tiring acts a dog can perform is repeatedly getting up out of a
down. Even dogs that LOVE chasing and pinching sheepybutt will calm down
and get that "gee, I'd rather lay here" look on their faces if you just
keep flanking and downing, flanking and downing. This is a devious strategy
indeed--because the dog IS getting reinforced for lying on the mat and it's
also reinforcing to get up to get the food. Initially the getting up to get
the food is more fun but pretty quickly it's the lying there that feels
better to the dog.
   When the dog is happy to lie there on the mat and has developed some
duration of the down, I'll incorporate my moving around the room as a
distraction. I also incorporate my own talking, etc.
   I also do a sort of free-form settle--used whenever I'm sitting down and
doing something, for instance if I were to go to an obedience class I'd
want the dog to settle down near me while we were listening to the lecture.
   For this, I just sit down somewhere with the dog on lead and wait. The
dog will explore the limited area they have available and eventually they
will sit or lie down. I click a sit or a down anywhere and hand the dog the
treat so that they don't have to get out of position to get it. If the dog
DOES get up, that's fine, they get the treat anyway. If the dog is
voluntarily sitting or lying down, after a while, I drop the click and just
hand them a treat. Fairly quickly, most dogs tend to drop into that "I'm
just hangin' out" mood.

Now, just wait--I'll probably find out with this Boxerbaby that it's not
all that easy!
<G>

M. Shirley Chong
The Well Mannered Dog