Are you struggling to teach your St. John’s Water Dog to sit? The skill of sitting up is quickly taught to smaller dogs, but larger pet dogs are a different story. It is tough for them to keep their equilibrium.
Teach Your St. John’s Water Dog to Sit: Anticipation
Sitting is one of the first techniques that you should teach to a St. John’s Water Dog and provides the ground work for quite a few other techniques. In order to train a St. John’s Water Dog to sit up, organize some snacks as a perk, and put the St. John’s Water Dog on her backside in the corner, so she can not fall either backward or sideways and has very little or no space to stumble.
Teach Your St. John’s Water Dog to Sit: Familiarize Her With The Command
Stop her from falling forward by holding your hand underneath her chin and with the second hand hold her reward above your St. John’s Water Dog’s face. Keep repeating intelligibly and clearly, “sit.” Don’t make her sit for too long at any one time, however repeat the lesson often and reward her often with a lot of cheers and treats.
Teach Your St. John’s Water Dog to Sit: Help Her Balance
In the 1st lesson she will require quite a bit of help and support from you to keep her from tumbling forward, but as she gets more control of the balancing muscles and learns what you want her to do, she will depend less on your hand to keep her steady. Then you can gradually give your St. John’s Water Dog less assistance until you will just have to leave one hand in position 2 or 3 inches from her neck or chin, to be set to stop her falling forward; later on you will be able to take away the hand completely and just suspend the treat just over the level of your St. John’s Water Dog’s head.
Teach Your St. John’s Water Dog To Sit: Remove the Help Gradually
After constant practice your St. John’s Water Dog will sit up well after you tell her to. The next step is she should be set up against your wall, so as to offer her support for her back. When she has soaked up this and can hold her posture easily, practice with her up against chair legs, cushions or other objects that give her less and less support. Ultimately she will understand how to maintain her equilibrium and sit without relying on something to lean on.
Teach Your St. John's Water Dog to Sit: Putting It All Together
During all these lessons the phrase "sit up" will have been impressed upon her mind by persistent repetition. Last is the final training to teach your St. John's Water Dog to sit up as quickly as she hears the words. There's a good chance, if she has been diligently taught, you will only have to call her out in the room, reveal to her a reward, hold it up a reasonable distance from the ground, say "sit up" and she will obey. Then give her the treat while still in position.
The only prerequisite for flawlessness is to train with her multiple times daily until she can sit up on command and without being shown a snack; give her the snacks only once she has adhered to the command.
Teach Your St. John's Water Dog Other Tricks
You have now the groundwork for teaching your St. John's Water Dog many other tricks. She can now be taught to beg by waving your hand up and down in front of her paws, which she will move in conjunction with yours. She also can learn to salute by bringing one paw 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 articles of clothing.
While instructing a St. John's Water Dog to accept being clothed, don't try to make her wear too many things at the same time. Try her at first with a cap. After she becomes adjusted to that you can put on a jacket and little by little introduce her to more clothes.
Get a kick out of "teaching your St. John's Water Dog the sit up trick" and most importantly have fun while you're doing it!
Don't forget to check out these other articles about St. John's Water Dogs
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