Giving paw when told to down

[Dee]

Hi,

Koda is 10 months old and has been through basic obedience. He's learned all his commands well and we practice often but he's started trying to give us his paw when we give him the down command. Is this his way of side-stepping our commands? If it is, what would you suggest we do to correct this?

Thanks,
Dee

[spidey]

He may be confused about what you want, or you may have inadvertantly trained him to do this. I'd work on one or the other for a while, without ever asking for both in the same training session. It may also be a submissive gesture. I don't personally believe that dogs come up with inventive ways to sidestep commands, it seems much more likely to me that we either think they understand more than they do at a given time and therefore expect too much, or we don't notice what we're actually training sometimes. He's still very young and may be entering a goofy phase, I'd just go back a few steps and reinforce his training in a fun and positive manner, it's entirely possible that his brain is out to lunch because he's entered puberty or something. Patience is the key! :)

[Rott-Wiley]

I agree with Amanda. He also may be testing to see exactly what he can get away with offering you for the down command. The first time he offered this behavior you may have smiled at him, indicating approval of his response. Now he's trying to get the same response again.

[cheryl]

[quote=Rott-Wiley]I agree with Amanda. He also may be testing to see exactly what he can get away with offering you for the down command. The first time he offered this behavior you may have smiled at him, indicating approval of his response. Now he's trying to get the same response again.[/QUOTE
It is probably confusion on his part. He wants to please, but is not exact on what you want from him.

[excellrott]

Angel does the same thing to me and I believe she just doesn't like that command very well, because when both my dogs are together and they are vying for attention, she shows no hesitation in going to down. When there is no obviouse treat waiting or the ground is cold or wet or she tired, then she starts offereing her paw instead of going to down. I don't have a solution except to say, that I insist and use a physical correction now, because I know she knows the command.

[Sue]

Spike will do this occasionally. He sort of tilts his head down and sideways and looks at me out of the corner of his eye......it so clearly says "gee, if I do THIS will you let me get out of doing a down?" that it's really hard not to laugh. But I don't let him get away with it!

[Wookie'sMom]

I had a similar problem, I got a clicker and read a lot about clicker training. A click marks the desired behavior, anything else is met with silence or "Try again". She caught on pretty quickly. So in my case it was probably just confusion on her part as to exactly what I was asking her to do.