How To Teach My Dog Sit
The sit command is probably one of the first things you’ll teach your dog. It is a great command to teach because you can use is around the house, at the roadside, when meeting people, really wherever you need to calm down your dog a little.
What you’ll need
- A quiet room/place with little to no distractions (to start with)
- Small tasty treats* (optional)
- Clicker** (optional)
- Patience
- Praise
How to
- Start with your dog in a standing position.
- Take a treat and hold it just above, near their nose.
- Slowly move your hand up and backwards slightly, the dogs will follow your hand, so as will their head, and as their head raises, their bottom will go to the floor.
- As soon as their bottom touches the floor click and treat.
- Repeat steps 2-4 a number of times until they have got the hang of it.
- Now your dog has the hang of sitting, it’s time to add the cue word ‘sit’.
- Start with a treat and hold it near their nose.
- This time as you start to move your hand up say ‘sit’ and continue moving your hand up for your dog the follow.
- Again as soon as they sit, click and treat.
- Repeat steps 6-9
- Once your dog is easily siting with the hand movement and command, start to make your hand movement smaller.
- When making the hand movement smaller, you have to do this gradually and slowly, as to not confuse your dog.
- So you’ll start with your hand a little further away, then you wont lift it as high, or make the movement so prominent.
- If your dog start to become weaker with the skill as you advance, take it back to where they were at a strong point, and have some patience.
Important Notes
- Make practices short but regular! If a training session is to long your dog will get bored and the skill will become weaker.
- Clicker: Timing is everything, click to early and they’ll learn to hover, click to late and they’ll struggle to associate the click with the bum touching the floor.
- Voice: same as the clicker with timing and make sure your voice is happy.
Any questions? Don’t hesitate to ask!
*Please note you don’t have to use treats while training, you can use nothing or a toy.
**Please note that you don’t have to use a clicker while training you can just use your voice, but make sure your voice is happy.
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