Are you trying to teach your Flat-Coated Retriever to sit? The technique of sitting up is quickly taught to pocket-sized dogs, yet larger dogs are a different story. It’s hard for them to maintain their balance.
Teach Your Flat-Coated Retriever to Sit: Groundwork
Sitting up is one of the first tricks that should be taught to a Flat-Coated Retriever and is the groundwork for several other techniques. In order to train a Flat-Coated Retriever to sit up, put together some snacks as a perk, and set the Flat-Coated Retriever on her rump in a corner, to ensure she can not fall either aft or sideways and has very little or no room to stumble.
Teach Your Flat-Coated Retriever to Sit: Familiarize Her With The Words
Prevent her from pitching forward by maintaining one hand under her chin and using your second hand hold her treat above her face. Keep repeating distinctly and intelligibly, “sit up.” Don’t force her to sit up too long at any one time, but do repeat the instruction frequently and reward her often with lots of praise and treats.
Teach Your Flat-Coated Retriever to Sit: Help Her Maintain Balance
During her initial lesson she will require a surprising amount of support from you to stop her from pitching forward, but as she gets control of her stabilizing muscles and sees what you want, she’ll depend less and less upon your hand to keep her steady. Then you can gradually give your Flat-Coated Retriever less help till you will basically have to leave one hand in position two or three inches from her chin or neck, to be ready to stop her from falling forward; in the future you can easily remove your hand altogether and just simply suspend the treat just above the level of your Flat-Coated Retriever’s head.
Teach Your Flat-Coated Retriever To Sit: Remove the Aids Eventually
With regular training she will sit up long after you tell her to. Next she should be set against a wall, so as to give her help for her back. Once she has picked up this and can hold her position easily, practice with her using chair legs, pillows or other things that offer her less and less help and support. At some point she will be trained to keep her balance and sit up without having something to lean against.
Teach Your Flat-Coated Retriever to Sit: Putting It All Together
During all this training the command "sit up" will have been impressed upon her mind through frequent repetition. Lastly comes the final training to teach your Flat-Coated Retriever to sit up right after she hears the command. There's a good chance, if she has been diligently taught, you will only have to call her out in the room, show to her a treat, hold it up a reasonable distance from the ground, say "sit up or sit" and she will do so. Then you'll just give her the treat while still in place.
The only necessity for perfection is to practice with her multiple times a day until she will sit up when commanded to and without being shown a reward; give her the snacks only once she has adhered to the order.
Teach Your Flat-Coated Retriever Other Tricks
You have now the technique for teaching your Flat-Coated Retriever many other skills. She can now learn how to beg by waving your hand up and down in front of her paws, which she'll move in conjunction with yours. She can also be taught to salute by bringing one paw up to the side of her head, or to hold something in her mouth, or to wear a cap on her head or wear other clothes.
While instructing a Flat-Coated Retriever to submit to being dressed up, do not try to make her wear too many clothes at once. Try her at first with just a cap. After she becomes used to that you could put on a jacket and slowly introduce her to the other garments.
Take joy in "teaching your Flat-Coated Retriever the sit up trick" and most importantly have fun along the way!
Don't forget to check out these other articles about Flat-Coated Retrievers
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