How to Train a Dog to "Sit" (K9-1.com)

we're going to go over one of the most commonly used commands which is how to teach your dog to sit the first step is to use a treat to lure your dog into position and your end goal will be to have your dog wean off the hand signal and respond to your voice command alone first step in teaching the sit is to lure the dog into position using a tree so we're going to hold the tree to the dog's nose and guide him into the sit by holding the tree up and over his head good

boy good boy make sure their butt is firmly on the ground before you praise and give the treat you'll notice also the the first two times that i did the exercise with spike i didn't say the word i just wanted to see if they would be predictable with the hand motion um once they're sort of predictable that when you good boy you raise the treat over their head that they're gonna put their butt on the ground you can start to pair it with the word so you want to make sure you're using your command just

before doing the hand motion so spike sit good boy spike sit good boy the next step once they're responding to the hand signal of having the lowering them into position with the tree to their nose we're going to use less and less of a hand signal meaning that we're going to take the same motion which is up and over their head and make it a smaller and smaller version you have to be careful of making sure that it's not too different of a hand gesture and then you get some confusion with the dog and you

have to go back to the step where you're getting success just spikes it good boy spiced it good boy spike sit good boy spike sit good boy so you want to keep working on fading off the hand signal until you're using no hand signal at all you want to make sure that you're also not using any other body language so no leaning forward no chin movements or anything your body should just remain neutral while you're asking the command that way you're sure that it's independent of any body language and they're really relying on your voice

command spikes it good boy good spikes sit good boy spike stick good boy spike sit good boy timing is really important so you want to make sure that you're rewarding the behavior as soon as it occurs so as soon as his butt hits the ground you're going to hear me mark you with good boy and then the treat really quickly afterwards a common problem that happens is people wait to mark the command and as they're giving the food the puppy gets up and they start to learn sit and stand up becomes the sick command and

then it becomes difficult to get them into the stay so once you've successfully weaned your dog off of the hand signal you want to start working on a variable reinforcement schedule where we're not rewarding the dog every time ideally in real life you're not always going to have food with you when your dog sits to reward them so you want them sort of working for the promise of the food and in order to maintain the behavior as something desirable to the dog we go to from a continuous schedule where you're rewarding the behavior every single

time that they perform it to a variable schedule where they may get it after two repetitions of performing the behavior or after five this keeps the dog thinking that maybe this time they're going to get the reward it doesn't always have to be there in order for the behavior to occur so spike sit good boy i'll start out giving him one good boy spiced it good boy good boy good boy stop sit spike sit good boy good excellent so just ignore any kind of jumping or any undesirable behaviors from your dog spikes it good boy

good boy good boy spike sit good boy you want to make sure when you're going to the variable reinforcement schedule that you're not going quickly from the continuous rate of reinforcement where you're reinforcing every time to only after every 10 repetitions or something you want to start easy make him do maybe two things and get a reward sometimes switch back to after one repetition then switch to maybe three things that he's got to do in order to get the reward but always make sure you're marking the behavior and praising and and even petting a common

question that we get is now that i got my dog to sit how do i keep them there this is the next step in teaching the sit command so what we do in foundation style training is we don't use a stay command we use a silence day which means that there's a beginning and an end to every command so what we're going to do with spike here is ask him to sit we're going to use our marker as soon as he's sitting but withhold the reward for just a second until we say free free is

going to be our release word you want to really use a word that is not common in everyday day-to-day conversation so that's why we use the word free in the beginning it's not going to really have a meaning to the dog so we're just going to wave them out of position with the treat in our hand spike's sick good boy free so notice as soon as he put his butt on the ground i verbally told him his marker which was good boy and then a split second later we're not waiting for a really long stay

we're not increasing our distance away from him i'm just gonna stay still and then after a second after completing i'm gonna use my hand to wave him out of position spike sit good boy free spike sit good boy good boy spike sit good boy good boy good boy free as i increase the time that i'm um waiting before telling him free um you'll notice i kind of encourage him along by telling him a good boy good boy is helping him with the that there's the promise of the reward that's about to come so if you

say nothing to your dog after you ask them to sit and you're waiting a time frame before giving a treat what often happens is they get out of position if they get out of position all you do at this point is just get them back into this position by showing them the food and asking them to sit again you're just withholding the reward as a consequence of not waiting until they hear the word free spike sit good boy free you want to keep your training sessions short so you're doing just a couple of repetitions at

a time maybe like five or ten repetitions and you want to spread out your training sessions if you can throughout your day so it's more natural for your dog you don't necessarily have to devote 45 minutes of teaching sit for your dog the more realistic you can make it and work it into your day such as ask them to sit before you pet them before they eat before they go out a door it makes it more natural and more likely that'll occur in regular settings