Are you struggling to teach your Pointer to sit? The talent of sitting up is quite easily taught to very small dogs, but much larger canines are a different story. It is difficult for them to keep their equilibrium.
Teach Your Pointer to Sit: Planning
Sitting up is one of the most basic techniques that should be taught to a Pointer and is the ground work for a number of other skills. To train a Pointer to sit up, prep some treats as a reward, and set the Pointer on her backside in a corner, to ensure she can’t fall either backward or sideways and has very little or no room to stumble.
Teach Your Pointer to Sit: Acquaint Her With The Sound of The Words
Prevent her from tilting to the front by keeping one hand underneath her chin and using your other hand hold the reward above your Pointer’s nose. Keep repeating distinctly and deliberately, “sit up.” Do not make her sit too long at one time, but repeat the training regularly and reward her regularly with a lot of adoration and treats.
Teach Your Pointer to Sit: Help Her Balance
Throughout the 1st lesson your Pointer will need a lot of help from you to stop her from falling forward, but as she gains control of the stabilizing muscles and starts to understand what you want her to do, she will rely less and less on your hand to keep her in position. Then you can gradually give your Pointer less assistance up until you’ll merely have to leave one hand in position 2 or 3 inches from her chin or neck, to be waiting to stop her from falling forward; later on you can easily take away your hand altogether and simply suspend the snack just above the level of your Pointer’s face.
Teach Your Pointer To Sit: Remove the Aids Over Time
After constant practice your Pointer will stay seated for a good while after you make her. The next step is she should be set against your wall, so as to give her a support for her back. Soon after she has understood this and can maintain her place easily, practice with her using chair legs, cushions or other objects that provide her less and less support. In time she will be able to keep her stability and sit without needing something to lean on.
Teach Your Pointer to Sit: Putting It All Together
During the course of all these lessons the words "sit up" will have been impressed upon her subconscious by means of frequent repetition. Last is the final training to teach your Pointer to sit up whenever she hears the phrase. It's highly likely, if she has been carefully instructed, you will only have to call her out in the room, display a treat, hold it up a reasonable distance from the ground, say "sit up or sit" and she'll obey. Then give her the reward while still in place.
The only prerequisite for excellence is to train with her multiple times daily until she will sit up on command and without being shown a snack; give her the rewards only after she has complied with the order.
Teach Your Pointer Other Tricks
You have now the foundation for teaching your Pointer many other skills. She now can be taught how to beg by waving your hand up and down just in front of her paws, which she'll move in conjunction with yours. She can also be taught to salute by moving one paw up to the side of her head, or to hold a toy in her mouth, or to wear a cap on her head or wear other clothing.
While training a Pointer to accept being clothed, do not try to make her wear too many items at once. Try her at first with a cap. After she gets used to that you can put on a coat and gradually over time introduce her to the other clothes.
Take joy in "teaching your Pointer the sit up trick" and most importantly have fun along the way!
Don't forget to check out these other articles about Pointers
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