Blue Dog Training and Obedience Program

The “sit” exercise is probably the most practical skill you can teach your dog. Whether you’re waiting at the curb of a crowded street or competing in an obedience trial, you’ll thank yourself (and your dog) for taking the time to master this exercise. 

Teaching a dog to “sit” also provides a kind of obedience gateway to all the other basic exercises, including: “sit-stay,” “down,” “down-stay,” “come” and “heel.” Training should be fun and relatively easy: Use a food lure and positive reinforcement. Short, training sessions will help your dog learn quickly – even young puppies will be eager to work if the reward is enticing enough.

The easiest way is to use a food lure.

Heres what basically you need to be doing:

1. Bond with your dog before training. He or she will pay better attention and will be more eager to please.
2. Understand that you are not teaching your dog to sit. Your dog knows how to sit and has been doing so for quite some time. What you are doing is teaching your dog to sit on cue (or “on command”, if you prefer) so, if, in the process of training, your dog sits without being told – no reward!. In this case, you have two choices of how to cue your dog. You can visually cue your dog to sit, usually done by raising your hand in front of the dog’s face, or verbally cue your dog by saying, “Sit!”
3. Make sure your dog is hungry when you teach this skill and use small, tasty, easy to gobble soft dog treats. 1/2″ cubes of hot dog or cheese work very well, as does Cheerio’s or expensive store-bought treats. DON’T use hard biscuits as they take too long to crunch down and you will lose your dog’s attention.
4. Lead him back into the sitting position with the treat by guiding his nose up and back until he has no choice but to sit. RIGHT BEFORE his bottom hits the ground say, “SIT!”, then give the treat. If your dog won’t follow the treat into the sitting position and just backs up, try doing this in a corner or up against a wall. You can also ease him into it by rewarding him each time he gets closer to sitting a sit.
5. Keep using treats until the dog knows exactly what you mean and sits every time you tell him. After that, you can and should give treats once and a while. Don’t worry about his “expecting” them. You are just going to make him work harder to get them.
6. Patience.