A Simple And Effective Method Of Teaching Your Dog To Sit

A Simple And Effective Method Of Teaching Your Dog To Sit

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When it comes to training your puppy any new behaviour, its always a good idea to have a training formula in place. Training formulas are very useful, as they allow you to break each training exercise down into manageable parts, and you can also highlight your skills and weaknesses during your training sessions, giving you an opportunity to enhance your skills.

I have picked a simple exercise for you to work on with your puppy, teaching your puppy to sit, and I am going to introduce a simple formula you can use, which is, management, patience, encouragement, consistency reward and fun. This formula is flexible and simple to use, so let us look at how we can apply it in a practical way, by teaching your puppy the sit exercise.

In order to train your puppy quickly and effectively, you will need to manage varies resources, tools, and environments, for example, before this is possible. In the case of teaching your puppy to sit, this will include, a long training lead (tool), some tasty food treats, or your puppys favourite toy (resources) , and a stress free, distraction free place (environment), in which he can learn in.
Having organised this, attach your puppy to the training lead, and get down on the floor with him. Stimulate his playful nature by playing a little game with him for a few minutes. Now its time to teach him the sit exercise.

Take a food treat, or your puppys favourite toy. Let him smell the food treat, or show him the toy. When you have his interest, lure him towards you with the treat or toy. Keep the lure around the height of his head, and as he gets near you, raise the treat or toy a little higher, and move it towards the back of his head. At this point, a neat little thing should happen; your puppy will look up to see where the treat or toy has gone. As he does this his back end should move towards the floor, this happens because dogs quite naturally find it difficult to sit and look upwards at the same time.
I
f your puppy sits at this point, give him his reward immediately, along with plenty, and plenty of praise. If your puppy fails to sit, it could be that he is moving backwards in order to keep his eye on the treat, keep trying, use plenty of encouragement, exercise patience, and eventually, he will get what it is you want him to do.

Initially, when you teach your puppy this exercise, you wont be giving him the voice command sit, so to get this exercise right, your puppy is going to need to guess the correct response, so initially, he may perform a repertoire of behaviours before he hits on the correct one. This is good, as it will help your puppy develop his patience, and problem solving abilities, and it will be much easier to teach him more complex tasks in the future.

When your puppy is sitting for his food treat or toy consistently, its time to move on. We are now going to insert the command sit as your puppy sits down. Lure your puppy towards you in the manner described above, and as his backside touches the floor, give him the voice command sit. You can then give him his treat or toy.

Your timing is important here; as you should only give your puppy his treat when his backside is actually on the floor, and not hovering above the floor, however, as I am sure you have gathered by now, your puppys movements can be quite erratic, so treating him at the right time will take a little practice. Continue with the exercise for a few minutes, and then finish with a little game. (Fun)

Keep your sessions short, I advise no longer than 5 minutes at a time to begin with spread throughout the day. This little and often approach will make sure your puppy doesnt become bored. Remember to manage the training situation, be patient, as it may take your puppy a little while to get the message, encourage him as he gets closer to achieving the goal,...that a good boy......what have I got etc. Be consistent, dont forget the exercise once he has done what you ask, puppies have short memories, and consistency will help him to retain his new skills. Remember to reward him for each correct response, and above all, make the experience fun. In this way he will be more motivated to keep working with you, and he will engage in each of his training session with greater enthusiasm.

About the Author:
Ivan Ojounru has been training dogs in the UK since the late 1980"'s. He now lives in France, where he continues to train dogs, and also write about dog behaviour, care, and training related topics. If you would like free further information, please visit http://www.dogtrainingcareadvice.blogspot.com



Article Originally Published On: http://www.articlesnatch.com


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