Premier MannersMinder Instruction Manual page 37

Chapter 8: Game 3 – Down Stay
or longer they often spend time looking at their
owner before they get their treat.
NOTE: At this point, Fido can do a down-stay under
normal household conditions but not with major
distractions. In stage 5 of training he will learn to
perform the down-stay even with significant
distractions such as visitors at the door.
Automatic Training Session – Quick Meal
At this point in training, on days when you're thinking
about skipping a training session, instead of
feeding your dog out of his dog bowl put him through
an automatic training session. Set the Treat Rate
between :03-:30 seconds, put it on SINGLE TREAT
and VARIABLE interval so that it doles treats out on
average at the Treat Rate but the actual rate var-
ies, which keeps him guessing. Then hit the DOWN-
STAY button to have the machine feed your dog his
entire meal automatically. In the Variable mode, the
MannersMinder will keep going until it runs out of
food. Make sure you're nearby so that you can call
Fido off his rug when he's finished his meal and so
that you can stop the session if he gets up prema-
turely on his own. If you use an automatic session
before you finish this stage of training, when you
do resume a formal training session, make sure you
don't skip ahead just because your dog does well on
these "non-training" days. If you're on a long interval such as :30 or more seconds, or
you want to get through the meal faster, you can set it to MULTITREAT so that each reward
is a jackpot.
Remember to stay near your dog in this step since we haven't yet worked on distractions.
If Fido's too focused on the machine,
give treats by hand until he
Automatic Training Session:
– Power = on
– Volume = on
– Session = single treat or multitreat
– Treat Rate = :03-:30 seconds
– Treat Interval = variable
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focuses more on you.