Are you aiming to teach your Australian Kelpie to sit? The technique of sitting up is quite easily taught to little dogs, but much larger doggies are a different story. It’s difficult for them to maintain their balance.
Teach Your Australian Kelpie to Sit: Groundwork
Sitting is one of the first techniques that should be taught to your Australian Kelpie and is the ground work for myriad other techniques. To train a Australian Kelpie to sit up, prep some snacks as a reward, and put your Australian Kelpie on her butt in the corner, to make sure that she can not fall either backward or sideways and has very little or no space to stumble.
Teach Your Australian Kelpie to Sit: Acquaint Her With The Sound of The Words
Stop her from pitching forward by securing one hand beneath her chin and using your other hand hold the treat above the Australian Kelpie’s face. Keep saying deliberately and clearly, “sit up.” Do not make her sit up too long at any one time, but do repeat the training often and reward her often with loads of praise and snacks.
Teach Your Australian Kelpie to Sit: Help Her Keep Her Balance
During her beginner lesson she will require a lot of help and support from your hand to prevent her from falling forward, but as she gains control of her stabilizing muscles and realizes what you want her to do, she’ll depend less upon your hand to hold her steady. Then you can gradually give her less help and support until you will simply have to keep one hand in position 2 or 3 inches from her chin or neck, to be in position to prevent her falling forward; in the future you can easily remove the hand completely and simply dangle the reward just over the level of your Australian Kelpie’s face.
Teach Your Australian Kelpie To Sit: Remove the Aids Eventually
With steady practice your Australian Kelpie will sit up well after you tell her to. The next step is she should be set against your wall, so as to give her assistance for her back only. Once she has mastered this and can keep her posture effortlessly, rehearse with her using chair legs, pillows or other things that offer her less and less aid. Ultimately she will learn how to keep her stability and sit up without relying on something to lean on.
Teach Your Australian Kelpie to Sit: Putting It All Together
During the course of all this training the command "sit up" will have been instilled upon her subconscious through persistent repetition. Lastly comes the final training to teach your Australian Kelpie to sit up immediately after she hears the phrase. There's a great chance, if she has been carefully instructed, you will just have to call her out into the room, show a reward, hold it up a suitable distance from the floor, say "sit" and she'll obey. Then you give her the treat while still in place.
The only prerequisite for perfection is to rehearse with her several times a day until she will sit up when commanded to and without being shown a snack; give her the treats only once she has complied with the order.
Teach Your Australian Kelpie Other Tricks
You have now the method for teaching your Australian Kelpie many other skills. She now can be taught to beg by moving your hand up and down in front of her paws, which she will move in coordination with yours. She can also be taught to salute by bringing one paw up to the side of her head, or to keep something in her mouth, or to wear a cap on her head or wear other clothing.
While instructing a Australian Kelpie to tolerate being clothed, do not try to get her to wear too many clothes at once. Try her at first with just a hat. After she becomes used to that you could put on a jacket and gradually over time introduce her to the other garments.
Delight in "teaching your Australian Kelpie the sit up trick" and most importantly have fun while you're doing it!
Don't forget to check out these other articles about Australian Kelpies
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