Are you trying to teach your Dunker to sit? The technique of sitting up is effortlessly taught to little dogs, but larger dogs are a different story. It is tough for them to maintain their equilibrium.
Teach Your Dunker to Sit: Prep
Sitting up is one of the fundamental tricks that should be taught to a Dunker and provides the foundation for various other techniques. To train a Dunker to sit up, prepare some snacks as a perk, and place the Dunker on her butt in a corner, to ensure that she won’t be able to fall either backward or sideways and has very little or no room to stumble.
Teach Your Dunker to Sit: Familiarize Her With The Phrase
Prevent her from tilting towards you by maintaining 1 hand beneath her chin and using the second hand hold her snack above her face. Keep repeating distinctly and deliberately, “sit up.” Don’t force her to sit for too long at one time, but repeat the instruction routinely and reward her often with loads of recognition and treats.
Teach Your Dunker to Sit: Help Her Stay Balanced
During her beginner lesson she will demand significant help from your hand to keep her from pitching forward, but as she gets more control of her muscles and understands what you want her to do, she will depend less and less upon your hand to hold her in position. Gradually, you can give your Dunker less assistance til you will merely have to leave one hand in position two or three inches from her chin or neck, to be in position to stop her from falling forward; in the future you can most likely remove the hand entirely and just suspend the treat just over the level of your Dunker’s face.
Teach Your Dunker To Sit: Remove the Assistance Incrementally
With frequent training she will stay seated long after you command her. Then she should be set against the wall, so as to offer her a support for her back. Once she has soaked up this and can hold her position easily, practice with her using chair legs, cushions or other objects that offer her less and less help. Ultimately she will master how to preserve her equilibrium and sit up in the absence of anything to rest against.
Teach Your Dunker to Sit: Putting It All Together
In the course of all these lessons the command "sit up" will have been impressed upon her psyche by means of regular repetition. Last is the final lesson to teach your Dunker to sit up as soon as she hears the command. There's a great chance, if she has been carefully taught, you will only have to call her out in the room, display to her a reward, hold it up a reasonable distance from the ground, say "sit up" and she will do so. Then you'll give her the treat while still in position.
The only requirement for perfection is to practice with her several times a day until she sits on command and without being shown a treat; give her the snacks only after she has adhered to the command.
Teach Your Dunker Other Tricks
You have now the fundamentals for teaching your Dunker many other skills. She now can be taught to beg by waving your hand up and down in front of her paws, which she'll move in rhythm with yours. She can also 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 clothing.
When training a Dunker to accept being dressed up, do not try to get her to wear too many clothes at once. Try her at first with just a cap. Soon after she becomes familiar with that you can put on a jacket and slowly introduce her to the other garments.
Take joy in "teaching your Dunker the sit up trick" and most importantly have fun along the way!
Don't forget to check out these other articles about Dunkers
Was this post helpful? If so, please take a minute to Tweet and Share below on Facebook. I would also love to know your thoughts so leave me a comment 🙂
Follow