Hi there, my name is Laura V and this is my gorgeous little rescue puppy, Cashew, or Cash if you want to call him that. Today we are talking about how to teach your dog to drop. Now, why teach your dog to drop? Well the main reason why is because it teaches them good manners. It also teaches them to have some impulse control. It gets their brain thinking, and also, if you can get your dog to drop on command, you can basically take them anywhere and everywhere.
I'm gonna show you how to do this with Cashew. Hopefully he's open to learning how to drop. Alright buddy. So what you need is really high value rewards. I have found the thing he's very willing to work for and I've got that in my hand. What we'll do is we'll use that treat, that high value treat, to lure him. So sometimes dogs will like to drop from a sitting position, as my dog runs off . Sometimes dogs will like to drop from a standing position, or there's a couple of other ways that you can get your dog to drop too. Welcome back buddy, thank you so much for joining me. So let's see what he prefers to do. We might start with having him in a sit position.
Hey buddy, sit, yes. Notice how I say the word yes, marking the fact that he's done what I asked him to do and that a treat is on its way. Oh, excuse me. And then what we do is we lure him to put his belly on the ground. As soon as his belly hits the ground my hand magically opens and he gets the treats. It's really important to free, to release your puppy to let them know that they don't have to be in that position any more, and that's really good so then you can continue the training.
Cashew, come here. We're also doing a bit of recall training here as well, oh good boy. If your puppy would prefer to drop from a standing position you can certainly also do that as well just by putting your hands in between their legs until their belly hits the ground, yes, free, good boy. Or you can get a little bit creative and one of the awesome members at Best Friends showed me this trick and that is to actually get your puppy by luring them to go under your leg and as soon as their belly hits the ground, yes, release the food and free.
The other great thing about doing these kinds of tricks and training with your rescue dog or your new puppy is it helps to build confidence and that's definitely what we want all our dogs and all our rescue puppies and other puppies to learn as much as possible. The other thing you can do with teaching your dog to go into a drop position is get them, lure them onto their mat, good boy, yes. So you can get them to actually go somewhere comfortable and creating a safe space, free, is really important for your dog.
Once you've managed to be able to teach your dog to drop by luring them down, you can actually put this on cue. So you can use the word drop and they will start to understand what that means. So what I'll do is I'll put my hand down, luring him, drop, yes. As soon as his belly hits the ground I say the word drop, free. I'm not gonna say the word drop before his belly hits the ground because he doesn't know what that word means.
He's still learning that. Cashew, come here buddy. So we'll do it again just to consolidate what I'm talking about. Drop, yes. Notice how I say the word yes after he's done the behavior. Free, well done, and we finish on a high. He's had a really successful training session, just a couple of minutes of learning something new, getting his brain moving, his body moving, building confidence and having fun together. Good luck with this one.
