Sitting Pretty

[Claudiabehr 3]

Mike, I know Harley knows how to do this, but can you and anyone else who has taught their pup how to sit pretty please tell me how you taught it to them. Panda has an arsenal of "tricks" but how to sit pretty eludes us. It literally took months for "roll over" which is now a snap.

[Chai 0]

do you want them to sit, or sit up?

Sitting, kneel next to the dog and put slight pressure on the back above the tail as you say "Sit" once their behind is down.. give a treat. (they will be little jack in the boxes and jump up as soon as the treat is given). Do this a few times then say sit and hold out the treat.. do not repeat the command and wait until the behind touches the floor before you give the treat.

I give a command of "Dance like a lady" or "Sit like a lady" for them to jump up and twirl or sit up with their feet in the air... Once we got the sit command down I held the treat up slightly out of sitting reach and had them reach up for it. (these are the positions I use to give the after-grooming treats, which sometimes have the meds hidden in them.)

The easiest way to train them to do something is to state a command while they are doing it naturally, then reward them for doing it. For example, I am teaching "Shake it out" to my GSP... so every time he gets wet and shakes, I tell him to Shake it out then give him a treat for having done it. He has clued in that whenever I say that command I want him to shake. We taught Peppi to "Sing" by telling her "sing sing" when she starting crying in her crate as a puppy.. then when she was done singing she got a treat. After teaching her how to "sing" we were able to teach her NOT to sing..

I hope this helps

Carrie

[tzuhouse 4]

Two of my three do this and we are starting Rudy....what I do, if I can explain it....I tell them to sit, then hold the treat just above their nose and keep raising it just slightly and they seem to automatically lift up the front paws and the body follows....with continued practice of course. First tries are always wobbly....so if they have problems you can back them up in so their butt is in a corner and try it there. Good luck, it is a trick everyone always loves.

[MisterMom 11]

Hold a treat over her head until she stands up to get it. You can also use this to teach them to dance and do circles by moving the treat in circles or slowly moving across the room. But for sitting pretty, lower the treat until she settles on her rump, say sitting pretty, then give the treat.

Brandi has always just done it. She sits for several minutes at a time.

[Luna 8,676]

OMG, you guys are SO much better about this stuff than I am! I teach "down", "sit" "come" and "stand" and am happy once they master those. I get tired just THINKING about teaching tricks!

[Claudiabehr 3]

Well, not to brag (which of course I'm going to do) but my little P understands "Give me ten" and jumps up to hit my two hands when I say it, "roll over" but she'll only roll to the right, "shake" "sit" "lie" "upup" means jump into my arms. But no "sit pretty" because when I try up until now, she would stand on hind legs. I'm going to give it a try............trick time is fun time! Please don't throw tomatoes.

[mr.coffee 364]

Fun stuff. Yeah, Harley just took it as a natural next step from Sit. We caught it and named it, treated and now he does it all the time.

-m