How to teach a dog to sit

To teach a dog to sit, you must first let it succeed once. If you want the training to be more solid, you can first read: The Principles of Dog Command Training. For ease of understanding, we divide the sit-down training into four parts.

The significance and use of the sit down skill

Sitting can be considered one of the essential skills for dogs, and it’s also very easy to master. This skill has two important functions:

First, when the dog’s mood is unstable, the owner can make it sit down to calm the dog and reset its mood. If the dog can still obey the command, it means that it still pays some attention to the owner, and its mood has not yet lost control.

Second, sitting down is a prerequisite for learning other skills. For example, waiting, lying down, or rolling over all require the dog to first learn to sit down.

The significance and use of the sit down skill

Commands, gestures and preparation tools

Before training, you need to first unify gestures and commands. You need to let the dog clearly understand what you want it to do. Only then can it obey the command. For example: the command is “sit”, and at the same time, we also need to give the dog a “fist” gesture.

The fist gesture is convenient for the owner to hide food in the palm. When the dog completes the action, it can immediately reward the dog with food to deepen the impression.

When the owner gives a command, the mood should be positive and happy, so that the dog will also cooperate more actively.

Prepare tools: food, traction rope and collar

Understand your dog, then choose the method

Each dog’s personality and situation are different, and the owner needs to choose the most suitable method. In order to provide the owner with a more suitable training method for the dog, we have combined our own experience and the methods of well-known dog trainers, and recommend three different training methods for owners to choose based on the actual situation:

Method 1 (natural guidance):

Use food to guide the dog to sit down actively

方法 2（限制指导）：

The dog will walk away, and use the rope to control it to sit down

Method 3 (external force intervention):

Generally, it is recommended that owners proceed step by step, first using method one, try to guide the dog to sit down in a relaxed and natural way. If the dog does not cooperate well, try method two, restrict the dog’s activity range, and then try to guide it to sit down. Only when the first two methods fail, use method three to stimulate the dog to learn to sit down.

During the training process, if it is found that the dog is resistant and uncooperative, then we can temporarily stop the training. First strengthen the connection with the dog through walks and other methods, then try training again.

Method 1: Naturally form the sitting action

If your dog has a stable and cheerful personality, you can use food to guide the natural formation method.

The specific method is as follows:

1. Stand in front of the dog, hold food in your hand, and raise your hand above the dog’s head.

2. Move your hand from the dog’s head to the back, let the dog’s nose point upwards, and the buttocks point downwards.

3. Keep moving your hand backwards, wait until the dog’s buttocks fall to the ground, immediately give food and praise rewards, and strengthen the dog’s memory of the sitting action.

Method two: Restrict the dog’s activities and guide the dog to sit down.

If the dog’s character is more excited or easily nervous, it will always avoid or be attracted by food to jump up, and its behavior is more restless. At this time, you need to restrict the dog’s activities first, and then guide it to sit down.

At this time, we need to use a leash to restrict the dog’s activities, the specific method is as follows:

1.Put on the leash, then step on the rope to restrict the dog’s activities. The rope should reserve a length where the dog will not be forced to sit down, and there is no way to jump up.

2. Lift the food to the dog’s head, gradually move out of the dog’s line of sight, and say sit down at the same time. The dog whose actions are restricted will unconsciously sit down in order to see the food.

3. Reward immediately after the dog sits down. 4. When the dog has initially formed a habit, you can remove the leash and practice repeatedly.

Method three: Assist the dog to sit down with external force.

If the dog is very resistant or always unable to learn, the owner can use external force to assist the dog to sit down.

When the dog’s desire for food is not strong, you can use a leash, while pulling up the dog’s neck, and pressing the dog’s buttocks with your fingers, let the dog’s head look up and sit down, to help it complete the sitting action.

Summary and key points

Persist in repeated practice
- When the dog completes an action, let it restore, and then do it a few more times to deepen the memory. Train 3 times a day, and the number of times each practice should be controlled within the range that the dog does not dislike.
Leave a good impression on the dog
At the end of each training, you should leave a good impression on it. Even if the dog has not successfully learned a new action, you should end it from the action it can do, and give it snacks and praise.