Close your eyes and picture yourself playing with your dog and having him stop and sit whenever you want – isn’t that a pretty picture? If you love your dog, and I am sure that all of you pet lovers out there do so, you will do your best to educate him.
It appears that thanks to a bad education, or the lack of it, 96% of the dogs that are in animal shelters had not received any obedience training. It is sad, however, preventing such things from happening, depends on you.
Having your dog learn how to sit is a very easy and fast process if started while they are still a puppy because puppies are curious by nature. Be careful, feelings like boredom or annoyance could take control on you or your puppy and in order to avoid it try to keep your training sessions as short as possible – 5 minutes maximum, according to specialists.
The first few lessons should take place in a quiet room, a place where the puppy’s attention cannot be distracted. Call your puppy’s name and say “sit” while holding your hand above his head. The moment you say “sit”, you have to slightly move your hand behind his head. This way, the puppy will have to lower his rear end to be able to watch your hand and as that happens you have to say “good boy” a few times, but not too many times because he might get bored and lose interest. The results will start to show after only a few training sessions.
Another training method that might seem silly, but it is efficient, is this: whenever your puppy is getting ready to sit say in a firm tone “sit” and when he does that praise him for doing it right.
Many dog owners usually think that having a dog trained how to sit is more difficult than trying to do the same thing on puppies. Specialist methods to train a dog to do that are pretty much similar to those used on puppies.
This method is a version of the one mentioned first: head up and the rear goes down! In order to have your dog doing that you will keep a treat in your hand, and many more in your pocket, for a start. When your dog is standing, during the training session, let him know that you have his favorite treat in your hand by showing it to him and moving it close to his nose. Move the hand holding the treat above its head and, afterwards, move it backwards slowly. “Good dog!”, a petting and the treat are its rewards for doing it right. In case he is not doing it right, do not reward him and try again patiently.
Now that I showed you a few methods and their “Do’s”, I also think that is my duty to present you what you shouldn’t do:
Don’t get angry! Keeping calm is very important because dogs can sense these feelings and they will not be interested in practicing if you don’t send them the message that it is fun.
Don’t help the dog to take the sit position by pushing its bum with your hand! Why? Because this will be associated by the dog as a part of the training lesson, as something that you have to do every time.
Patience, reward and repetition are the keywords, don’t forget that!
Terence Young – For more dog obedience and training tips and ideas visit: obediencedoggytrainingdotcom