Are you struggling to teach your Australian Cattle Dog to sit? The talent of sitting up is effortlessly taught to smaller dogs, though bigger dogs are another story. It is challenging for them to keep their balance.
Teach Your Australian Cattle Dog to Sit: Prep
Sitting is one of the initial tricks that you should teach to a Australian Cattle Dog and forms the groundwork for myriad other tricks. To train a Australian Cattle Dog to sit up, prepare some treats as a reward, and place your Australian Cattle Dog on her haunches in the corner, to ensure she will not fall either backward or sideways and has very little or no space to lose balance.
Teach Your Australian Cattle Dog to Sit: Acquaint Her With The Words
Keep her from pitching forward by securing one hand beneath her chin and using the second hand hold her snack above the Australian Cattle Dog’s face. Keep repeating intelligibly and distinctly, “sit.” Do not make her sit up too long at one time, but repeat the instruction frequently and reward her regularly with plenty of kudos and treats.
Teach Your Australian Cattle Dog to Sit: Help Her Keep Her Balance
Throughout her 1st lesson she will require a surprising amount of support from you to prevent her from falling forward, but as she gains more control of her stabilizing muscles and grasps what you want, she will depend less and less on your hand to hold her in position. Then you can gradually give her less help until you will simply have to maintain one hand in position 2 or 3 inches from her neck or chin, to be ready to prevent her falling forward; later you will be able to take away the hand entirely and just simply suspend the snack just over the height of your Australian Cattle Dog’s face.
Teach Your Australian Cattle Dog To Sit: Remove the Assistance Progressively
With consistent practice she will sit up well after you tell her to. The next step is she should be set against the wall, so as to provide her help for her back. Once she has taken in this and can maintain her position easily, practice with her against chair legs, pillows or other items that offer her less and less assistance. At some point she will figure out how to maintain her stability and sit without relying on something to lean on.
Teach Your Australian Cattle Dog to Sit: Putting It All Together
Throughout all this training the command "sit up" will have been instilled upon her mind by persistent repetition. Now here's the final lesson to teach your Australian Cattle Dog to sit up whenever she hears the command. It's highly likely, if she has been diligently taught, you will simply have to call her out into the room, show her a reward, hold it up a suitable distance from the ground, say "sit up or sit" and she will obey. Then just give her the snack while still in place.
The only criteria for flawlessness is to rehearse with her multiple times a day until she can sit up when told and without being shown a reward; give her the treats only once she has obeyed the order.
Teach Your Australian Cattle Dog Other Tricks
You have now the method for teaching your Australian Cattle Dog many other skills. She now can learn how to beg by waving your hand up and down in front of her paws, which she'll move in coordination with yours. She also can 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 articles of clothing.
While instructing a Australian Cattle Dog to accept being clothed, do not try to make her wear too many garments at the same time. Try her at first with just a hat. Only after she gets accustomed to that you can put on a coat and little by little introduce her to the other clothing.
Appreciate "teaching your Australian Cattle Dog the sit up trick" and most importantly have fun in the process!
Don't forget to check out these other articles about Australian Cattle Dogs
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