Are you attempting to teach your Kooikerhondje to sit? The talent of sitting up is quickly taught to small dogs, yet larger doggies are another story. It’s problematic for them to maintain their equilibrium.
Teach Your Kooikerhondje to Sit: Preparation
Sitting is one of the fundamental skills that should be taught to your Kooikerhondje and lays the ground work for innumerable other skills. To train a Kooikerhondje to sit up, prepare some treats as a reward, and set your Kooikerhondje on her haunches in the corner, to ensure that she can’t fall either backward or sideways and has very little or no space to stumble.
Teach Your Kooikerhondje to Sit: Familiarize Her With The Phrase
Protect her from tilting to the front by sticking 1 hand on her chin and with the other hand hold her reward above the Kooikerhondje’s face. Keep repeating deliberately and clearly, “sit.” Do not make her sit for too long at one time, but do repeat the instruction often and reward her often with plenty of kudos and snacks.
Teach Your Kooikerhondje to Sit: Help Her Stay Balanced
During the first lesson she will demand significant help from you to prevent her from tumbling forward, but as she gets control of the balancing muscles and knows what you want, she will count less and less on your hand to hold her in position. Gradually, you can give her less assistance up until you’ll just have to maintain one hand in position two or three inches from her neck or chin, to be available to prevent her falling forward; eventually you might remove this hand entirely and just dangle the snack right above the level of her face.
Teach Your Kooikerhondje To Sit: Remove the Help Eventually
With steady practice she will sit up well after you set her up. Afterward she should be set against a wall, so as to offer her help for her back. After she has grasped this and can keep her place easily, rehearse with her against chair legs, pillows or other objects that provide her less and less assistance. Gradually she will learn how to maintain her equilibrium and sit up without needing something to rest on.
Teach Your Kooikerhondje to Sit: Putting It All Together
During all these lessons the phrase "sit up" will have been ingrained upon her subconscious with the assistance of constant repetition. Lastly is the final lesson to teach your Kooikerhondje to sit up immediately after she hears the phrase. It's highly likely, if she has been properly taught, you will just have to summon her out into the room, reveal to her a snack, hold it up a suitable distance from the floor, say "sit up or sit" and she will obey. Then you give her the snack while still in place.
The only condition for perfection is to rehearse with her multiple times a day until she can sit up on command and without being shown a reward; give her the snacks only after she has complied with the command.
Teach Your Kooikerhondje Other Tricks
You have now the basis for teaching your Kooikerhondje many other skills. She now can be taught to beg by moving 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 moving one paw to the side of her head, or to keep a toy in her mouth, or to wear a hat on her head or wear other clothes.
When teaching a Kooikerhondje to accept being dressed up, don't try to make her wear too many clothes at the same time. Try her at first with just a cap. Only after she becomes adjusted to that you can put on a jacket and incrementally introduce her to more clothing.
Take pleasure in "teaching your Kooikerhondje the sit up trick" and most importantly have fun along the way!
Don't forget to check out these other articles about Kooikerhondjes
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