How to Teach Positions 

If your dog has no previous experience with sit or down, then this lecture should help get you started. Read the next couple of lessons to narrow down which positions your team needs for the purpose of this program. You can always focus on adding positions later on in your journey. 

I will outline my general process below. 

Step 1: Lured  

I usually take a session or two with food in my hands, luring the dog into the position I'd like and rewarding both in position and out of it with a tossed cookie, and then return back to luring into the position. 

Step 2: Offered 

At session 2-3, I start with luring the behavior a couple of times, just like in the previous step, but then I delay showing the dog the lure. They usually offer something that looks like what I was just luring, and I can mark and reward that. 

Step 3: Add (verbal) Cue 

Once the dog is offering the behavior pretty easily, I can insert the cue just as they're doing it or just before they do it. If they don't respond to the cue right away, I use the lure to show them the behavior I was looking for, mark and reward. 

Step 4: Build Duration 

Because of standby training, the dogs understand that silence means be still, and so building duration is similar to how duration was built in standby, except I mostly reinforce out of position. I vary the duration I'm asking for, aiming for up to 5 seconds at this point, and reinforce the duration by letting the dog move out of position to collect reinforcement (via cookies from hand, tossed cookie, or cookie in dish if you're at that point!) 

Step 5: Generalize Handler Position 

It's really an important step that your dog can move into a position not only when they're in front of you, but also when they're on your side, or between your legs, if that's how you're going to do your startline setups. I reward my dog for standby as I change my position relative to them, and then cue the position change after stopping in the position that I want. I do this until the dog can change position at my side, and with me one step ahead of them. 

Review the next two lessons to narrow down which positions you need from this program.