HOW TO GET DOWN

Long before I hired a trainer, Gracie knew her basic obedience and then some. Communicating with her was as easy as a sit, stay, wait, down or even “let’s go up the stairs to bed” or “can you get down, so I can get up?” She knew to sit and wait for her dinner, to fetch the ball and to release it into my hand when, and only when, I said “please.” To sit before being picked up… and to give hugs once she was in my arms (thanks to my dad).

I was obsessive in training my family every routine and rule… to not feed her table scraps and to not coddle her no matter how tiny or cute or sad-eyed (no small dog privileges allowed… yet). Together we went out to dinner, shopping, the beach, my friends’ houses. And even after all of that I ended up with an insecure and severely fear aggressive dog who first instigated excruciating bark-fests directed at any and all dogs anywhere in a noticeable vicinity… and then ultimately refused to go for walks. Period. And so we hired a trainer.

Peeling back the layers of Gracie’s various issues, Susan, of The Well-Heeled Dog, was able to get Gracie walking in that first private session. And with a set of simple instructions from Susan, Gracie and I spent the next few months walking. All over the neighborhood. All the time. Avoiding every dog we came across with the goal of building her tolerance for their existence in the world. And when we were eventually able to work up to being in the presence of other dogs as long as they were still 20 feet away and they didn’t look at her or sniff in her general direction, we were finally able to take the real steps towards Gracie’s advancement by taking a step backward and starting over in a basic obedience class.

Certain she could do any command or trick thrown her way, we thought the only challenge would be working near other dogs… that was why we took the class… for her to practice working near other dogs. Turned out Susan really taught us many things, some of which were outright missing from our habits, some of which we’d forgotten, and a few of which had never entered our lexicon.

The first revelation came when, though I thought Gracie had a solid down… Susan revealed we’d been doing it all wrong.

Sure Gracie would put her belly on the ground and look at me, waiting for her reward, but she was never really down, like relaxed, like chillin’. Susan insisted for a real down, she needed to shift her weight to the side and roll over on her hip, like a dog lazing in the sun. Not, as it turned out, sitting upright like a Sphinx ready to pounce. Who knew?! Now, some dogs just do this. Most probably. Or maybe they don’t, but they’re calm nonetheless. When we tried to instill this behavior in Gracie, her resistance became quick evidence to us of her hyper-vigilance, insecurity, and her general need to always be ready to freak out… just in case. So we had all the more reason to tackle this little but powerful obstacle.

Much like the idea when we are happy we smile naturally, but if we are sad and we choose to smile, we can become happy, when working with animals, the mind can make the posture, but so the posture can also affect the mind. As average dog owners most of us aren’t even aware of this concept or the great effect it may have on how we train our dogs. We hadn’t read her energy, just her general position and certainly hadn’t realized we could ask for the mind-altering posture. So with this understanding, we strove to make Gracie’s down a real down to put her in a state of ease and calm she wasn’t capable of achieving herself... all with a simple command and a specific expectation.

It was definitely a process that began with the ultimate in baby steps, just getting her into the position was difficult enough. However over time, this simple move was one we were able to transition into a practiced “long down,” where she needed to be specifically trained to lay down on the floor on command for an extended period of time. A practice we were able to generalize from our living room and out into the real world. One that not only resulted in Gracie relaxing on the grass in the sun at the park for the first time ever, but lead to her being certified as an AKC Canine Good Citizen a mere nine months after our first private session with Susan, and right now where she is passed out in her bed on the floor across the room from me.

Now when working with Oliver, more of a dog than Gracie but an anxious and lively character with his own peculiarities, sometimes he just does it… but there are those other times when I now know his energy is up, his anxiety is peaking, or when he’s just too excited for whatever is coming next… I take a second to go one step further and make sure his down is a real down. And when he swings his butt around in resistance, it reminds me how much he needs my guidance and patience and sometimes just plain waiting, no matter how big of a hurry we’re in.