Teaching Sit and Down

I’ll be talking about two of the most basic cue’s you’ll teach your puppy. Sit and down. Both are necessary for every pup to learn in the early days of their training. They’ll be fundamentally important for anything else you plan to teach.

There are two different methods I’ll be talking about: luring and capturing. Luring entails primarily using treats to show your puppy where you want their body positioning to be. Bringing the treat to their nose and guiding them into place really helps them get the hang of things. Capturing is another method, this is pretty much reinforcing any time your pup spontaneously does a behavior you’re looking to teach. An example would be if you have a brand new pup that hasn’t fully learned how to sit on cue, and they randomly decide to sit in front of you one time, you’d immediately reinforce that behavior by giving them a verbal marker like “yes” or "good” something like that. And a treat is ideal in this scenario but you may not have them on hand so some nice scratches and happy voice can definitely substitute treats in that moment. I prefer lure training with puppies because I find that when you are setting aside specific time for your pup and engaging fully and intentionally with them, that's when they learn the most. Capturing to me is more of a bonus. Making sure to mark those moments with positive reinforcement but in my opinion it isn't quite enough to achieve the goals you most likely have for your pup.

Now, lets start with how to lure a sit position with your puppy. They aren't going to understand what you’re asking of them if you just say “sit” so you need to show them. Get your pups attention and have them be standing in front of you, bring the treat to their nose and lift it up in sort of an arc over their head slowly. They will look up and hopefully sit their butt down naturally. The moment they do, mark “yes!” and give them the treat. You’ll want to set aside at minimum 10mins a day to practice this with your pup. To do reps with this, you can also throw in teaching them stand. Luring them again by holding the treat to their nose but this time they’ll be in the sit position and this is how you’ll bring them out of it to repeat. Treat right on the nose like before, and pull it forward towards you this time. You’ll wanna do this pretty slowly and you might need to lure it a few times before they get the hang of it. You want them to have at least a 75% success rate of completing the behavior using a lure before you start adding a cue. So give them a few sessions of guiding them and showing exactly what you’re lookin for while reinforcing it. After you feel they are getting into a groove with it, you can start adding in a cue. In this case, that would be the word sit. A cue is the word you’ll be saying to your puppy and expecting a behavior to follow. My mantra is 1 cue, 1 behavior, 1 mark. For example: You ask puppy to sit that's the cue- they sit- that's the behavior- and you tell them yes and give a treat, that's the ark. Doing each of these things only once is incredibly important to not confuse your pup. If every time you asked for a sit you said sit….sit…sit…sit..sit until they did it, they’ll start to deduce that you saying sit x amount of times means sit. You don’t wanna have to do this every time. So here's a great way to avoid repeating a cue one after the other;

If you ask for a behavior and your puppy is just staring blankly at you not sure what to do, simply reset them a little. This is called a cheerful interrupter. This can sound like “uh oh” eh eh” a friendly sound that isn't a cue you already use. You don't want to put any anger or disappointment in your voice because its quite frankly counter productive and wont do anything helpful or conducive with them learning. You also want to refrain from saying no. No is a word you want to use for serious situations that involve the safety of your dog or others. If you used it all the time, your pup wont see any significance in it, so save that no for later when you really need it. The cheerful interrupter is a fantastic way to tell your pup that they didn’t do what you asked by taking a step back and saying uh oh will separate the cues so they will start to understand the difference. After using that interruption you can then start the cycle over again by asking the cue. This is why you want your pup to have a 75% success rate with luring because for these first few times of adding in a cue, you’ll need to lure them as well to build association between the action of sitting and the word sit. Be patient and kind to your pup and in no time they will be sitting without a lure!

Now for down, it’s the same process but I’ll explain how to lure this: to start out you can first bring them into a sit and reward for that, then take another treat and bring it to the nose pulling the treat down between the puppy’s front legs. They should follow the treat with their head and naturally kick their feet out behind them to get to the floor where that yummy smelling thing is. But I’ve worked with plenty of pups who don't get the hang of it this way, or just feel awkward doing it that way. so if that doesn't work you can try the same lure but sit on the floor with them, bend one knee up slightly so you create sort of an arch with your knee. Have puppy be on one side and put your hand on the other side of your leg. Bringing the treat through the arch encouraging them to get it by laying down. The second their tummy hits the floor mark and give the treat. One thing I also wanted to mention is that asking for a sit before a down can take a toll on your dogs hips and joints in the future, especially and specifically if you have a puppy that will become a big dog. So after they successfully do a down with you asking them to sit first, start to ask for the down from a standing position, it will be better for them long term and most likely more comfortable.

Remember that puppies are clean slates and they need to be taught what is expected of them. Guiding them and practicing a lot of patience will give you the best results possible!

Thank you so much for listening I hope you learned something knew or were reminded of something important! if you want to follow me on other outlets, it’s pawsitivepupspdx on Instagram I have all of my other links in my bio there. I am currently in the process of developing an online puppy school that will be available in February 2023! Stay tuned, and I look forward to hopefully having you back here next week!