Thursday, December 18, 2008

How to teach your dog to sit

In this How-to guide we will learn how to make ones dog sit on command.
So here goes.

What you will need:
* Your dogs favorite toy
* Or favorite doggy snacks

You can choose either but from personal experience I've found that the dog reacts faster to snacks.

Teaching your dog to sit might well be the easiest command you can teach it believe it or not, it is quite an easy and straight forward process.

1)
First of we will start by bringing the dog into an open space using either toy or snack to get it's attention.

If your pet does not heed commands yet doing this outside will not be the best of ideas as it will most probably just run of somewhere.
Choosing either toy or snack and sticking with it is important as consistency will be important to form a habit in the training.

2)
Now that you have your dog in the room with you bring the toy or snack in view of the dog to obtain it's attention, waving it around in the air might help in the start.

When the dogs attention is at you and the treat/toy you may begin the training.

3)
Bring the toy down to the dogs face letting it sniff/see the object and slowly bring the object up above the dogs head while using the command "
sit" until it starts craning it's neck to get a better view and naturally sits down to do this.
Praise and pet it as it sits down and make it understand the connection to the command as well as giving it the treat/toy as a reward.

If this should not work and the dog starts spinning around on the floor simply put your hand on it's hind part and gently push down on it's butt using the "sit" command and holding the object in plain view in front of the dog until it complies.
Proceed to praise and pet the dog when it get's it right and give it the toy/snack as a reward.


This is all that is needed to teach your dog how to sit but there is still a few things to keep in mind:

*First of never scream/yell at your dog as this will only be counter productive in teaching it anything.

*Be patient and keep up the training exercises regularly as the dog will need time to form a habit around the command and learn the concept.

*Don't overdo it, 10-15 minutes two times a day will be enough.

*Keeping snacks/the toy in your pocket to randomly test the dog throughout the day as it get's more used to the command is a nice way to keep the command reinforced.



This concludes my How-to guide on "How to teach your dog to sit", I hope you enjoyed it and do recommend it to others.