Are you trying to teach your Huntaway to sit? The technique of sitting up is effortlessly taught to smaller dogs, but much bigger doggies are another story. It’s tricky for them to keep their equilibrium.
Teach Your Huntaway to Sit: Preparation
Sitting is one of the very first skills that you should teach to your Huntaway and provides the groundwork for innumerable other tricks. To train a Huntaway to sit up, prep some snacks as a reward, and put your Huntaway on her haunches in the corner, so she is unable to fall either backward or sideways and has very little or no room to stumble.
Teach Your Huntaway to Sit: Acquaint Her With The Words
Keep her from falling forward by maintaining one hand on her chin and using your second hand hold her treat above your Huntaway’s nose. Keep repeating distinctly and intelligibly, “sit.” Do not force her to sit up for too long at one time, but do repeat the instruction regularly and reward her frequently with loads of appreciation and snacks.
Teach Your Huntaway to Sit: Help Her Maintain Balance
In her very first lesson she will need a surprising amount of help and support from your hand to stop her from tumbling forward, but as she gains control of her muscles and sees what you want her to do, she will depend less upon your hand to keep her steady. Gradually, you can give your Huntaway less help til you will basically have to leave one hand in position 2 or 3 inches from her neck or chin, to be waiting to stop her falling forward; later on you can easily remove this hand entirely and just hold the snack right above the height of her face.
Teach Your Huntaway To Sit: Remove the Help Slowly
With consistent practice she will sit up long after you make her. Afterward she should be set against your wall, so as to offer her support for her back. Immediately after she has grasped this and can hold her place effortlessly, practice with her against chair legs, cushions or other things that provide her less and less help. Eventually she will get the hang of how to keep her equilibrium and sit without needing something to lean on.
Teach Your Huntaway to Sit: Putting It All Together
In the course of all these lessons the words "sit up" will have been instilled upon her mind with the assistance of constant repetition. Now is the final lesson to teach your Huntaway to sit up immediately after she hears the words. There's a good chance, if she has been carefully trained, you will only have to get her out into 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 give her the treat while still in place.
The only criteria for excellence is to rehearse with her several times a day until she will sit up on command and without being shown a snack; give her the rewards only after she has obeyed the direction.
Teach Your Huntaway Other Tricks
You have now the foundation for teaching your Huntaway many other skills. She can now be taught how to beg by moving your hand up and down just in front of her paws, which she'll move in rhythm with yours. She can also be taught to salute by moving one paw to the side of her head, or to hold a toy in her mouth, or to wear a hat on her head or wear other clothes.
While instructing a Huntaway to submit to being clothed, do not try to make her wear too many clothes at once. Try her at first with a cap. Only after she becomes adjusted to that you can put on a coat and gradually over time introduce her to the other garments.
Delight in "teaching your Huntaway the sit up trick" and most importantly have fun while you're doing it!
Don't forget to check out these other articles about Huntaways
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