An All-the-Way Down is a great skill to teach if you want to clip or Dremel nails yourself. It's also a great way for your pup to opt in to nail clipping or out once this basic skill is established (head relaxed means proceed; head raised means no or pause).
Here Chef is at the beginning. We practice on each side because handling the paws on the bottom is way easier for the pups, however at this stage there is no paw handling and no nail clipping.
In this video you can see one side is easier for Chef than the other. This is typical for most dogs. With practice both will become easy for him.
To start I lure him into position and ask for a Down, then I use a food lure to bring his head toward his mid section which causes him to shift onto his hip. I then bring the lure up over his head to get him to go all the way down on his side. Eventually you can fade the lure and turn the hand motion into a hand signal which Chef is starting to get on his easier side. Once he has solid hand signals for each side, you could then teach "all the way" as your verbal cue.
On his difficult side it took about 5 sessions before he'd keep his head down while being fed. Here he lifted his head while I reached in my pouch for more treats and I gave him a few seconds to see if he would offer to put it down himself to restart the treats. But this side is too frustrating for him so I lured him back down, fed a few treats, and released him because his thinking brain was shutting down. This is his 6th session and he's already made huge progress.
Goal is for him to lay completely on his side with all 4 legs stretched out toward you (not tucked or pawing at your hand) and his head relaxed on the ground. During these initial stages I am fixing his legs as he's calm enough to let me.
Ideally you can do a short session daily until he'll gladly do an all-the-way Down on each side with a hand signal. He'll understand that treats come when he keeps his head relaxed on the ground, but stop when his head comes up. This will eventually be his opt in/opt out signal to you for when you get to both paw handling and nail trimming.
Once he is solid with this basic skill, you'll then add paw handling to it. Once that is mastered, then you'll slowly add clipping.
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