"SITTING PICKY"

Ok, the puns may not make you laugh, but being picky is very important in order to build the concepts that make up the rest of your dog's life. I know "sit" seems like the easiest thing in the world, but we are using the sit to set up a foundation of understanding and a world of concepts for you and your dog to share together. The "sit" cue sets the stage for the rest of your dog's understanding. If you master the "sit" properly, then "down" and "stay" and even your recall will be amazing. It's all related. For example, if you're an athlete, and you lift weights and run 5 miles a day, don't you think you'll be stronger when asked to carry a box upstairs? One thing absolutely does lead to another. Strengthening your dogs UNDERSTANDING is what we're actually doing here.

Last time, we covered the basics: LURING to "sit" position, rewarding for sustained eye contact, and releasing with "OK". These steps must be mastered with 80% accuracy (meaning the dog and you can do it correctly 80% of the time) before moving on to today's lesson.

Today, we move on to adding MINOR DISTRACTIONS, and REWARDING instead of LURING. We'll talk about adding in LIFE REWARDS, such as freedom, greeting other dogs, or exiting the car and other boundaries. Just because your dog "sits" perfectly in the living room, does not mean that he'll sit in front of another dog, running squirrel, or out on a hike. I want to ensure that your dog will CHOOSE to "sit" in all of these situations. The important thing is to add in distraction slowly, and keep it extremely rewarding. Remember: REWARD needs to be the most exciting thing your dog experiences. If "other dogs" are more rewarding than your chosen reward for your dog, he'll choose other dogs over your reward. This is an extremely important thing to understand! It's the primary reason that dogs "don't listen". So far, we've used only positive reinforcement, and we are going to continue to do so.

Let's begin. We are now going to switch from the LURING method, to real, honest, REWARDING. This is a very important distinction, which some people never add in to their training. The danger of never switching to REWARD is that you will always have to have food in your hand in order for your dog to listen. People wonder why their dog is not listening anymore, and usually it's usually because they never faded the lure! So far, you've had the treat in your hand as you signal your dog to "sit". This is very simple: move the treat to your NON hand signal hand and put it behind your back, or use a treat pouch (I've designed one, and it's coming out soon) to hold your treats around your waist. With your HAND SIGNAL HAND, FREE OF FOOD, signal your dog to "sit" as taught in the previous blog. Voila! If you practiced correctly, your dog just sat for NO treat! NOW YOU MUST INSTANTLY GIVE HIM HIS REWARD FROM YOUR OTHER HAND, OR FROM YOUR TREAT POUCH. You are now building trust, and promise of a REWARD instead of BRIBING with a lure. The SOONER you can fade the lure, the better. For NOW, I still want you to reward REWARD REWARD REWARD (yes dog training is a lot of repetition) EVERY SINGLE CORRECT RESPONSE. The food is NO LONGER present in your hand signal hand, and AFTER the dog sits you will produce the promised reward! Simple as that! You've just faded the lure! Now: what if your dog doesn't sit? DO NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCE USE YOUR LURE AGAIN! If you do, you've just trained your dog NOT to sit.... get it? If he "doesn't sit" you pull out a treat and bribe him! This is exactly how I'd train a dog NOT to sit when I asked. We'll have tons of time to learn about varied/ intermittent reward (where the dog never knows which response gets him the yummy treat!) But for NOW, in order to build our training consistently with our pups, we will continue to reward (not bribe/ lure) every time. Next: if your dog continues not to sit, simply use "no reward" and walk away. Put the treats away and try again later. When he's hungry enough, he'll eventually sit! It's a learning process for both you and your dog, so don't get frustrated. If worse comes to worse, don't say anything and just stare at your dog. He'll probably do what's called "offering" a sit. This is actually a very powerful way to train your dog. It's very ZEN. All dogs sit. Simply wait. When your dog sits, produce a reward and say "Sit"... "Good sit!" at the same time! Voila. If none of these methods work, you're doomed. Just kidding.... keep trying, it'll work, and you can always email me your questions!

I want to get this up for you guys..... so you'll have to check back for "SITTING PICKY PART TWO" tomorrow. We'll cover a lot more. Thanks for checking in!

--The Behavior Savior
much woof!