It is essential to start upbringing your new puppy correctly by learning how to train a puppy to sit as soon as you bring it home. You can attempt this feat on your own, or hire a professional. If you plan to do it on your own, this article will help to get you started.
Why is Training a Dog to Sit Important
When you learn how to train a puppy, the sit command is the most important one to teach the dog because many other commands like shake hands, stay, shake, and down are all based on the this basic command. When you’re learning how to train a puppy to sit, it should not be hard, as this is one of the simplest commands to teach a dog. It is most important that you remain consistent when you’re training a new dog. When you learn how to train a puppy to sit, it’s imperative that you learn what you need to do to make the process as easy as possible.
Give Your Dog Rewards For Obeying Your Commands
Psychologists have found that an alternating incentive system based on positive reinforcement is the most effective method for controlling a puppy’s behavior. When you’re learning how to train a puppy to do anything, you will be advised by any source to reward your puppy every time that it obeys a command during the training process. You can try using food as a reward, you can reward them with toys, or you can give them praise. When you’re training a dog to sit, and give it a reward as a form of positive reinforcement, the puppy will began to connect the reward with the act of sitting.
Techniques for training a dog
If you want to learn how to train a puppy to sit, you need to begin by approaching the dog while it is in a calm state. You may want to consider taking the dog for a walk, or even playing a game of fetch before beginning. Start by giving the dog the verbal command to sit, along with a physical hand gesture at the same time. This will associate the act of sitting, with both the verbal and the physical command. Professionals have specific hand gestures that differ for each command. Just like each verbal command will be different for each training skill, each hand gesture should be different for each command when you’re learning how to train a puppy as well.
While you’re executing the sit command, hold a piece of food over the dog’s head. Dogs walk on all fours and their body structure makes it impossible for them to look directly up. When you hold the food above the dog’s head it will naturally cause the dog to sit before it can look up. Once the dog sits, give it the food reward along with verbal praise. When the dog does not obey the sit command, do not reward it with the food and turn away from it for a few seconds.
The dog is going to have to see and hear the commands over and over before they began to associate them with the action of sitting. This will happen in due time so remain patient. Hyper dogs may prove more difficult to train, but again, remain patient as this is not an impossible task.
While this is not an arduous task but it sure does take its own sweet time due to dog’s nature varying from breed to breed but there is a Web Site titled Pup love that would give you an insight into the world of pups.
As I stated earlier, teaching how to train a puppy to sit is the most important training skill to start with. A dog that does not know how to obey a simple sit command will not be able to move on to more advanced training skills.
