After WEEKS of training...Aspen can "down" without the visual hand cue and only with the verbal cue! I am so excited and proud of him. We are also on a wait list for an 8-week obedience course in December so I am really excited about that! Can'e believe he will be 7 months in a couple of weeks already!! Anyways -- how do you all recommend training "go to your bed"? Aspen will lay on his bed and sleep on his own for a couple hours at night when we go to bed. He will usually jump on our bed around 3-4am though! Was just wondering how I train him to have a spot to go to when guests arrive or when we are eating dinner. Hoping the fact that I can tell him to lay down on his bed & he will stay there for a bit is a start.
When Red was 5 months, I did this - lure with reward to bed, say ‘on your bed’; she had to lie down to get treat. Say ‘stay’ verbal and hand cue until given the release cue - for us ‘come’. From quite an early age too I put her lead on and led her onto her bed which I put on the floor near my feet in the dining room, when she was in the down position, I gave her a kong. I remember having my foot on her lead to ‘anchor’ her initially until we had the stay. We also did this a lot at the puppy training class we went to. At the beginning and after every exercise she had to go on her mat/bed and was given a frozen kong before the next exercise so we had lots of practice.
From the first day Plum came home I'd throw a treat in her crate each time I wanted her to go in and say "bed." To be honest I didn't think about it in the long term, it was just an automatic thing to do. But as that was something she did a lot she learned quickly what "bed" meant. We were also taught "settle" at puppy classes whereby, whenever she was relaxed and lying down, as soon as she let out a sigh I'd say "settle" and treat her.
