Teddy’s Top Training Tip: Teach your dog to sit, lie down and stand
The three different positions of this week’s training tip are sit, down and stand. There are many different reasons why these are very important to teach your dog. Some of these are:
- Sit: It allows the owner to greet the dog calmly, the owner can put a collar/harness/lead on, teaches impulse control and it forms part of many other exercises that need to be taught.
- Down: It allows the dog to take up a relaxed position, it is part of the settle command, it is a more comfortable position than the sit or stand positions.
- Stand: It allows the owner to groom or bath the dog, useful for veterinary examination and it is part of the obedience trials/showing.
Each of the above positions can form part of the stay training that has been discussed in earlier training tips/bonus biscuits.
Hand signals and vocal signals are important when teaching these three training positions:
- Sit: hand signal is to move your hand up to waist/shoulder level and the verbal signal is “sit”.
- Down: hand signal is to move your hand forward to lure the dog into a stand and verbal signal is “stand”.
- Stand: hand signal is to move your hand from the dog’s nose to the ground and the verbal signal is “down”.
Teaching the above positions can come with many problems. The following are a few that may help with your training:
- Sit: the dog sits away from the owner – try to not lean forward and bring your hand closer to your legs before raising up as lure up to your wait/shoulder level.
- Down: the dog does not lie down – the owner’s hand movements to lure the dog to the ground may be too quick and/or the angle of your hand may encourage the dog to stand rather than lie down. Move your hand slower working on lowering the dog to the floor and reward immediately the dog lies down.
- Stand: the dog sits down – the dog may see the hand moving from the lure of his/her nose to waist or shoulder level and therefore sits. Do not reward the sit more than the stand, make sure that the stand is rewarded immediately before lengthening the time your dog stands.