From my Front & Finish Column in the 90’s.
As promised, this month we are going to start building a two-part “down-stay” from start to finish, clicker style. For those of you who are instructors, I am going to digress a little and actually describe the initial shaping. Teaching a “down-stay” will obviously go smoother if the dog already knows the relationship between the click and the treat – if you are teaching classes or doing private appointments, you can use this exercise to make the click = treat association while shaping the behavior. This month we will take the first stages of shaping the behavior and varying the reinforcement, then finish up, next month with creating reliability and integrating the behavior into the dog’s repertoire.