Training question??

I need some suggestions, I've been working on some of Savannahs basic commands since I want to put her into agility. She does everything well except when I tell her down she instantly goes down and rolls onto her back. She used to do this when we first adopted her at the drop of a hat but now only does it when you "down" her or you raise your voice. Any suggestions on how to get her to down without instantly rolling over? I've trained using both voice and hand signals so she'll respond to either and it doesn't matter which I use, the response is the same. Any idea's? I'm trying to get her into the same trainer I used with Hunter but she's booked for the next month so any suggestions would be welcome.

I would retrain the down completely.

At first do not expect anything. Get her into a sit, have a treat in your hand, and let her sniff it. Lower it infront of her body until you get her in the down position. TONS of treat at praise. Do NOT add a command until she is regularly and consistantly downing without the treat and just a hand signal(hand going towards the ground). Then you can add the down command. Or, to prevent any issues with using this word, you can always choose another word.

Do you use the word "down" for a down command? Since you've been
accepting a down for her actions now, you might have to use a new word,
(hand signal,etc) for doing the down properly. Just teach her another
command word & help her to see what you mean for her to do.
Does that make sense? :D

I agree that I would retrain the down from scratch to build the dogs confidence. However, to make it more difficult for the dog to "roll over" when she is downed, you could place her in between two obstacles such as boards or whatever else you can think of where there is no room except to down. Immediately when she downs reward her and praise her.

In competition obedience using the obstacles as I've mentioned above are sometimes used for teaching straight sits and downs. I'm sure it would work for you too.

I would also suggest a new command while you retrain her. Good luck.

Thanks everyone. I confess I hadn't really thought of trying a different command. I tried tonight with "lay" instead of "down". It took a bit but I finally managed to get her to lay down, but she tried to roll over again so I tried the board idea. After she got over her initial apprehension over the boards I managed to get her down without rolling over. I'll keep working on it, but at least now I have hope I can get her past this. Thanks again. :)

This is a sign of submissiveness on the dog's behalf. My dog Shaggy did this obsessively when first adopted. He might have been abused prior to my adopting and had really bad submissive behaviors. He wasn't even able to play with toys! :eek:
This may sound "cruel" but this is how I handled the problem. He still does it to a degree but only about 25% of the time. My first step was to NOT pet the dog when he "rolled over" and exposed his belly. I would instantly ignore him and NOT touch him until he got back up. I still do this till this day for reinforcement. My second step was to get more "aggressive" for a time period. Whenever he rolled over, I would promptly grab his tail (at the base) and this front paws/front area and FLIP him back onto his feet! Then I would say good dog and pet him.
I did have to "flip" him for a few months until now he is completely able to understand he is NOT going to get petted until he is on his feet. Now I do NOT have to do this at all. He still rolls over but when he sees I won't touch he comes back up. I will admit I do on occassion rub his belly anyways. It's just to let him know that I love him.
Remember, you are ALPHA dog. Dog's like "pecking orders". The dog acting submissive means that his pecking order is much lower than the other animals in the order. This isn't a bad thing and should be recognized. NEVER try to make an "alpha" dog out of both of your dogs. They will fight!

I'm glad the board idea is helping along with changing the command. Using training aids such as the boards has helped many competitors in obedience fine tune and correct behaviors.

I like the boards and positive retraining using a different command rather than ignoring and flipping the dog back over as suggested above. Yes, it does sound like the dog is exhibiting submissive behavior by instantly rolling over (especially if the dog was never formally taught that behavior) but by reshaping the behavior with a new command and training aids such as the boards, you are building confidence in a dog that obviously needs it instead of ignoring it.