Are you working to teach your Akbash to sit? The talent of sitting up is quite easily taught to pocket-sized dogs, however much larger dogs are a different story. It’s hard for them to maintain their equilibrium.
Teach Your Akbash to Sit: Preparing
Sitting is one of the initial skills that should be taught to your Akbash and forms the foundation for numerous other techniques. To train a Akbash to sit up, prep some treats as a perk, and put the Akbash on her haunches in the corner, so that she won’t be able to fall either aft or sideways and has very little or no space to stumble.
Teach Your Akbash to Sit: Acquaint Her With The Words
Protect her from tilting towards you by holding 1 hand on her chin and with the second hand dangle her reward above your Akbash’s nose. Keep saying clearly and intelligibly, “sit.” Don’t make her sit up too long at any one time, but repeat the training frequently and reward her frequently with loads of cheers and treats.
Teach Your Akbash to Sit: Help Her Maintain Balance
In her first lesson your Akbash will demand a surprising amount of support from you to stop her from tumbling forward, but as she gains better control of her stabilizing muscles and recognizes what you want her to do, she will rely less and less upon your hand to hold her steady. Gradually, you can give her less support till you will merely have to maintain one hand in position two or three inches from her neck or chin, to be available to stop her from falling forward; later on you may remove the hand and simply hold the snack right over the height of your Akbash’s head.
Teach Your Akbash To Sit: Remove the Aids Over Time
With regular practice she will sit up for a long time after you make her. Next she should be set up against your wall, so as to provide her a support for her back. Immediately after she has grasped this and can maintain her posture effortlessly, practice with her against chair legs, pillows or other things that offer her less and less help and support. In the end she will master how to maintain her stability and sit without having something to rest against.
Teach Your Akbash 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 frequent repetition. Lastly is the final lesson to teach your Akbash to sit up as quickly as she hears the command. There's a great chance, if she has been diligently trained, you will merely have to call her out in the room, display to her a snack, hold it up a reasonable distance from the floor, say "sit up" and she will do so. Then you'll give her the reward while still in place.
The only criteria for perfection is to practice with her several times daily until she can sit up when commanded to and without being shown a treat; give her the snacks only once she has followed the direction.
Teach Your Akbash Other Tricks
You have now the technique for teaching your Akbash many other skills. She can now learn to beg by moving your hand up and down in front of her paws, which she'll move in coordination with yours. She also can learn to salute by bringing one paw up to the side of her head, or to hold an object in her mouth, or to wear a hat on her head or wear other clothing.
In training a Akbash to tolerate being dressed up, don't try to make her wear too many clothes at the same time. Try her at first with just a hat. Once she gets familiar with that you can put on a jacket and gradually over time introduce her to the other clothing.
Take pleasure in "teaching your Akbash the sit up trick" and most importantly have fun along the way!
Don't forget to check out these other articles about Akbashs
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