I'm training my dog the different positions (sit, stand, and down) with an implied "stay". That means that when I ask him to sit, he's supposed to stay in that position until I "release" him.
For "sit" and "down", so far so good.
But then I realised that these first steps are easy because in the initial position the dog is usually standing.
I was struggling to train a "sit" from a "down", then I realised that might be the problem, I added another cue to "sit from a down" and he quickly got it.
So the question is: are dogs learning the movement or the final position?
Similarly what about a "stand" cue? In my case it means "stand and stay". But if the dog is already standing, he just has to stay. Do I risk confusing him by using a single cue?
What is your experience with this?