It can be tricky to teach greyhounds to lay down using conventional methods, due to their physicality. You have a couple of options.
Capturing:
- Any time you see the greyhound lay down or are about to lay down “capture” this behaviour by marking it with a “yes”/click. You can set up the environment for this by sitting down, having the dog bed by your feet and your hound on lead. Be patient and reward them when they inevitably lay down. You can toss the treat away from them to make the game more exciting, then return to sitting and wait for them to lay down again. Check out Coby’s videos here for a demonstration.
- When the hound is laying down reliably you can add in the cue “down” beforehand. If your hound lays down then jumps back up straight away, you can add duration to this behaviour by feeding several treats in quick succession and rather than saying “yes”/click, try saying a long, soothing, drawn out word like ‘gooood’ or ‘suuuuper’ to encourage them to remain in the position.
Luring:
- The starting position for the dog is them standing up. Place a tasty treat in your hand, in front of the dog’s nose. Slide your hand on the nose in and down towards the dog as if there was on a diagonal rail from their nose to their back feet. You could have a wall behind them to prevent them from walking backwards.
- Alternatively, kneel and with a treat on your dog’s nose, lure them underneath one of your legs. You could always do under a chair as well. You may need to have your criteria small to begin with, so all your dog has to do to earn a reward is move their nose towards the ground, then place their elbows on the floor, then their chest, and then have their bum come down and touch the floor too.