The send away exercise

[4paws]

Hi everyone,
What is a good way of teaching your a dog the send away exercise where you send the dog to a certain point then when he reaches that point the dog is placed in the down position. I realize this is a hard exercise but I would like to know from trainers who have had success at this and what methods used. Thanks in advance.

[Shalista]

I'm very curious as well. we had to do "pushing" in agility and i was a bit confused on how i was supposed to train bax for it. I think it's similar to what your trying to do?

[elisa]

This sounds like a competitive obedience "trick". I don't do competitive obedience, but I think the trick is in teaching the dog to notice the markers for the place first using treats or a toy. So you get them to go there. Then you add in the down.

I think the pushing in agility would be different mostly as agility is a more action-filled endeavour. I'm not sure exactly what you mean by the push. Agility language is a mess for the direction control moves. Unless it is what I call the "go-go" where the dog is supposed to just keep going in a rather straight like to all the obstacles. That we taught by sending past one jump with someone else treating after on the other side, and then adding in jumps or other obstacles. Some dogs are better at it than others depending on how close they like to keep to the handler. Mine is sometimes too good even without the "go-go" cue.

[Nettle]

And I use working-dog direction - which is different again

So which sort do you want to train, 4paws?

[Shalista]

haha yeah elisa, idk my trainer called it "push" i think, you send the dog out laterally to the side away from you and then they take whats in front of them. the gesture for it was to have your dog on your right and you extend your right arm palm up like telling someone to stop. then they'd run to the right away from you. ideally. i mean, bax never really got the hang of it =P
I know what ya mean by the "go" but it's def not that =P

EDIT: and since im decently sure im not talking about what the OP is, ill stop hijacking the thread

[mansbestfriend]

Hi. There are many similar cues used for different purposes, and requiring different degrees of training.

How about training to target an object, then gradually train/add more distance between dog and the target.

[4paws]

Thanks everyone, The training is same as Nettle was saying direction control. but I have always known it as the send away. I want to send the dog to a cone left or right place the dog in the down then send him to another cone into the down. Which do you think is the best method to start. Just like a Shepherd would do with his dog left right down
regards