Sit

Teaching The Cue

What?

In this module, we will teach your dog to sit.

This means that as soon as he hears the cue, “Sit”, he will adopt a seated position (wherever he is when he hears it) and will remain there until released.

Why?

We start with what seems like quite a basic skill to teach.

We cover the early stages in this module today to ensure your dog has learnt the behaviour correctly, and that you haven’t built in any contingencies. By this, we mean other factors which your dog has learned must be present before they’ll adopt the seated position (ie the behaviour becomes 'contigent' on the other factor/s and isn't a response the word "Sit" on its own).

Good examples of this include owners who have to repeat the cue several times, say it progressively louder, walk toward or stand over their dog, tug on the lead, etc. Lots of dogs also taught to sit only in one place, relative to the handler. So, for example, they shuffle round to sit facing their owner before sitting, or they return to their owner from being at a distance before sitting close to their owner.

Later on, when your dog needs to sit remotely from you, for example; when you blow a Stop Whistle, it won't work if your dog will only sit when you stop walking, or you raise a hand in the air (if they are running in the opposite direction), or any other contingencies have crept in.

How?

We begin, like with a lot of our training, by using a lure. Effectively, we are bribing the dog to follow a piece of food in order to adopt a particular position. The benefit of a lure is that it creates the behaviour we want as a starting point. The downside of relying on luring alone, is that we haven’t taught your dog anything. As soon as there is no food, there is no behaviour. This is where adding the cue becomes important, as this teaches your dog what you want him to do.

So, once your dog has offered the sit position several times by luring, remove the food and just use your hand. This is still technically a lure, but we are fading it. 

We then add the “Sit” cue to the behaviour and so your dog starts to associate the sound of you saying the cue with him adopting the seated position. Don’t forget, your dog, lovely as he is, doesn’t speak English. He just hears a sound and learns to associate it with something which leads to a pay-out.

Lastly, after several repetitions, we test to see if he has actually learned the cue. If he responds with a nice sit, we mark it with a “Yes” or a click to tell him that was the right thing to do and payment is about to land in his doggy bank account.

Ultimately, we do want to create a start and an end to the behaviour. That way, your dog knows how long to remain in the seated position for and doesn’t get-up until he’s told he can.

So we say “Sit” to start and provide a release such as “Off You Go” as a release whilst throwing the food on the floor to his side.

In the next module, we progress the training by keeping your dog seated for longer before you release, but at this stage, don’t worry too much about the release. Just work on creating a really good association with that cue and offering the seated position without delay.

Proof Your Sit Cue Works Properly

Standing in a different room to your dog, ask them to sit (once). Peek around the corner, and if they have sat in the room that they were in, you've cracked it!

Target to Achieve For Next Week

Before undertaking the next module on this course, it is important that you practice at home. Daily repetition will ensure that your dog has enough time to learn the behaviour before we progress further.

Next week, we will start the training at the point where we assume that your dog can perform the following criteria:

Your dog will sit without delay, wherever they are standing at the time you say "Sit"