Down is the most useful position cue you can teach, because a dog who is lying down tends to stay there. It is also the one dogs resist most, and the resistance usually has a reason.
Why dogs refuse to lie down
It is a vulnerable position. A dog lying down cannot move quickly. An anxious dog, or one in a new environment, will resist for that reason alone.
The surface. Cold tile, wet grass, gravel. Many dogs who “won’t do a down” will do one instantly on a rug.
It hurts. This is the one people miss. Lowering into a down loads the elbows, hips and stifles. A dog with arthritis, hip dysplasia, elbow dysplasia or a soft tissue injury may find it genuinely painful.
If your dog used to lie down easily and now hesitates, lowers slowly, or lies down in stages, get them checked before you train.
They have been pushed into it. A dog whose shoulders were pressed down braces against a hand. It teaches resistance rather than the behaviour.
Method one: the lure
Works for most dogs.
- Start with your dog in a sit, on a comfortable non-slip surface
- Hold a piece of food at their nose
- Move your hand straight down to the floor between their front paws, slowly
- Most dogs follow it down. As the elbows touch, mark (“yes”) and feed on the floor
- If the back end pops up instead, your hand moved forward rather than straight down
- If they get halfway and stop, mark the halfway point for a few repetitions, then ask for more
Feed on the floor, not from above. Feeding upward brings the dog back up.
Fade the lure fast. After five or six successful repetitions, do the identical hand movement with an empty hand and feed from the other hand. Then shrink the movement to a small downward gesture. Then add the word.
Dogs who are lured for weeks without fading end up with a cue that only works when there is visible food.
Method two: under the leg
For dogs who will not fold with a straight lure.
Sit on the floor with one knee raised to form a low tunnel. Lure your dog under it with food. To get under, they have to lower — and most dogs end up in a down without realising.
Mark and feed the moment the elbows touch. Lower the tunnel over repetitions until it is no longer needed.
Method three: capturing
The best method for dogs who resist luring entirely, and the one that produces the most relaxed down.
- Sit in a room with your dog, with a pot of food and something to read
- Every single time your dog lies down of their own accord, say “yes” and toss a treat
- They will get up to eat it. Wait
- When they lie down again, mark and toss again
- Within a session or two, dogs start lying down deliberately to make you pay
Only add the word once they are offering it reliably.
This takes patience but it produces a dog who genuinely chooses the position, which is what you want for a settle.
What not to do
- Do not push the shoulders down. It teaches bracing, it damages trust, and in a dog with elbow or shoulder pain it is genuinely cruel
- Do not pull the front legs forward
- Do not repeat the cue. Once, clearly. If nothing happens, the cue is not strong enough in that environment
- Do not train on cold or hard surfaces while the dog is still learning
Building it out
Once the position is on cue, it is worth the same three-dimensional work as any other behaviour.
Duration. Feed at intervals while the dog stays down — one second, three, ten, thirty, irregularly. Feed between the paws, which keeps the head low and the dog settled.
Distance. Cue the down, step away, step back, feed, release. Build slowly, always returning to feed rather than calling the dog to you.
Distraction. One at a time, at home first: you stand up, you walk about, you drop something, someone walks past.
Different surfaces and places. Grass, tile, gravel, outside, at a café, in a car park. Dogs generalise poorly, and a down is particularly location-dependent because of the surface issue.
Different positions of your body. Cue it while sitting, standing, from across the room, with your back turned. Most dogs only know “down” from a person standing directly in front of them, leaning slightly.
Down versus settle
They are different goals and worth separating.
Down is a position on cue. The dog is alert, holding a posture, waiting for what comes next.
Settle is a state. The dog is lying on a hip, head down, breathing slowly, possibly asleep.
You get a settle by rewarding calmness rather than compliance: feeding quietly when the head lowers, when the dog sighs, when the weight rolls onto a hip. Deliver the food slowly, placed between the paws, with no excitement.
Most household problems people want to solve with “down” are actually settle problems. It is worth training both, and knowing which one you are asking for.
A note on the emergency down
A down at distance — dropping a dog where they stand — is a genuinely valuable safety cue for a dog who runs towards a road or another dog.
It is a specialist skill and it needs training separately, at distance, from the beginning, rather than trying to stretch a close-range down. Most dogs cued from far away simply come towards you first, which in an emergency is exactly wrong.
