Are you aiming to teach your St. Bernard to sit? The skill of sitting up is easily taught to compact dogs, yet larger doggies are a different story. It’s problematic for them to maintain their equilibrium.
Teach Your St. Bernard to Sit: Prep
Sitting is one of the fundamental techniques that you should teach to a St. Bernard and lays the ground work for a lot of other skills. To train a St. Bernard to sit up, prepare some treats as a perk, and put your St. Bernard on her rump in the corner, so she can’t fall either aft or sideways and has very little or no room to stumble.
Teach Your St. Bernard to Sit: Acquaint Her With The Sound of The Words
Protect her from falling to the front by securing one hand beneath her chin and using your second hand hold the snack above your St. Bernard’s face. Keep saying intelligibly and distinctly, “sit up.” Do not make her sit too long at any one time, but do repeat the instruction routinely and reward her regularly with loads of recognition and treats.
Teach Your St. Bernard to Sit: Help Her Maintain Balance
During the initial lesson your St. Bernard will call for significant assistance from your hand to prevent her from tumbling forward, but as she gets control of the stabilizing muscles and figures out what you want, she’ll rely less on your hand to hold her in position. Then you can gradually give your St. Bernard less assistance until you will simply have to leave one hand in position 2 or 3 inches from her chin or neck, to be in position to stop her falling forward; in the future you can probably remove this hand altogether and just suspend the treat right above the height of your St. Bernard’s face.
Teach Your St. Bernard To Sit: Remove the Help Slowly And Gradually
With frequent training your St. Bernard will sit up well after you command her. Then she should be set against your wall, so as to provide her support for her back. When she has picked up this and can maintain her posture effortlessly, rehearse with her using chair legs, cushions or other objects that offer her less and less help. In the end she will get the hang of how to keep her balance and sit up without needing anything to rest against.
Teach Your St. Bernard to Sit: Putting It All Together
During all these lessons the command "sit up" will have been ingrained upon her psyche through frequent repetition. Now is the final training to teach your St. Bernard to sit up as quickly as she hears the phrase. It's highly likely, if she has been properly trained, you will just have to get her out into the room, display to her a snack, hold it up a suitable distance from the ground, say "sit up" and she will do so. Then you give her the treat while still in place.
The only necessity for perfection is to rehearse with her multiple times daily until she can sit up when commanded to and without being shown a treat; give her the treats only after she has obeyed the command.
Teach Your St. Bernard Other Tricks
You have now the technique for teaching your St. Bernard many other skills. She now can be taught to beg by moving your hand up and down just in front of her paws, which she will move in coordination with yours. She can also be taught to salute by bringing one paw to the side of her head, or to keep a toy in her mouth, or to wear a cap on her head or wear other articles of clothing.
While instructing a St. Bernard to submit to being clothed, don't try to make her wear too many things at once. Try her at first with just a hat. After she becomes used to that you could put on a coat and incrementally introduce her to more garments.
Take joy in "teaching your St. Bernard the sit up trick" and most importantly have fun in the process!
Don't forget to check out these other articles about St. Bernards
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