Sit, Stay, and Lie Down

[RachelJ]

I would be interested to know how you taught the high five. I think that would be cute to do. In teaching tricks to my dogs, I have noticed their they learn much faster if I use a hand signal in addition to the command. Then later I have noted that when using one or the other, the hand signal is often more reliable than the verbal command.

I noted that in the above poll both *down* and *lie down* were used. It is my belief that using similar sounding commands for different directions can be confusing to a dog. I use *down* for asking my dog to lie down. I use the term *off* for everything else, meaning off the chair, off of me (for a dog with his front paws on me), off the table, etc. Essentially off means, you are not to be where you are at at this point in time.