How Do You Speed Up Their Response?

[kcmetric]

Just wondering how you all get a faster response. Baby does everything I ask but he's rather slow -- how can I speed up his response to my cues to things like sit, down, stand, place, swing?

I've tried only rewarding/marking the faster ones but he doesn't really care.

Are there fun "games" to play or something?

 

[Mutt]

I get the quicker responses by: proofing the behavior (fully understanding the cue), getting them excited, moving with them (with sit/down for instance I move my arms to the ground and back up), rewarding after a sequence, changing between the things I'm asking (if I ask the same to often repeatedly it will get boring and therefore the dogs will react slower).

Here is a training session from me and Mazzel speeding things up:

 

[Anneke]

I have a dog that is slow in response. And there is no way he will go any faster than he wants
But yes there are games to play to get most dogs to respond faster.
I often play the "fast"game, which involves running.
I get my dogs attention, run a few steps, stand still and ask for a sit. You can reward with a treat or a game of tug(but no throwing a ball, as you will make the dog go away from you, which is not what you want) Then run again, stop and ask for a down. Run and ask for anything you want the dog to do. You can ajust this to anything you want, but don't ask for one thing the whole time, the dog will become bored.

 

[fickla]

Besides only doing training with the dog in as much of a drivey state as they're capable of and making everything as game like as possible, I also interrupt slow responses. I want and need silence to equal good for my dog's since they do compete in obedience so I can't just not reward the ones I don't like and reward the ones I do like or I'll have a very confused dog in competitions where I can't talk and there are no external rewards. What I do instead is to interrupt the dog the moment I don't like something with a cheerful try again! or too slow! or whatever blab comes out of my mouth as I reset the dog. Depending on what I'm doing I might also happily tag the dog and run away a few steps for the reattempt.

Example1: working on a fast down while heeling if my dog has 1 second to start moving down I'm not going to wait until the dog slowly starts to lie down at 3seconds and elbows hit the ground at 4. Instead at the 1.5second mark I'm already, happily, goosing the dog and moving away even if I can see the dog starting to bend. I personally feel that waiting until the dog already completes the behavior and then trying to give them feedback about speed or straightness or whatever is too confusing to the dog. Of course I start at a baseline of what I'm getting. If your dog's average speed is 3 seconds then I'm only going to wait 2.5sec-3sec to reset the dog...

Example2: crooked fronts. I don't wait until the dog is already sitting in front of me crooked and then tell them to straighten up. I feel that doing so encourages the dog to be shifty and adjusting position a lot if not given their reward right away. Instead I interrupt the second I see the dog starting to lower their butt for the sit but sidestep AWAY from the dog in order to interrupt the sit and at the same time make their error bigger. Of course in this example my dog should already know how to side step