I then proceed to cueing "OK" which to my dogs' means you can now move away. I repeated the process until they were running to the blanket with ease. Then I stopped "yesing" them for just standing on the blanket. This is an indicatin to my dogs to continue offering behaviors, each one then offered sit and then only sits on the blanket got food reinforcements. I did however, prompt the first three downs with my dogs to speed up the process and in no time all three were lying on their blankets by me just looking towards their blankets.
I will next add a cue to sending them to their blankets on a verbal cue. However, I haven't found a cue I like yet so I'm stuck.