Are you struggling to teach your Greyhound to sit? The technique of sitting up is easily taught to very small dogs, however much bigger doggies are another story. It is challenging for them to maintain their equilibrium.
Teach Your Greyhound to Sit: Prep work
Sitting is one of the initial tricks that you should teach to a Greyhound and is the ground work for a number of other skills. In order to train a Greyhound to sit up, prepare some treats as a perk, and put the Greyhound on her rump in a corner, so that she won’t be able to fall either backward or sideways and has very little or no room to stumble.
Teach Your Greyhound to Sit: Familiarize Her With The Sound of The Words
Prevent her from pitching forward by keeping 1 hand underneath her chin and with the other hand dangle the reward above her nose. Keep repeating clearly and deliberately, “sit up.” Don’t force her to sit up for too long at any one time, but repeat the training routinely and reward her frequently with loads of kudos and snacks.
Teach Your Greyhound to Sit: Help Her Maintain Balance
In her initial lesson she will need quite a bit of help and support from you to stop her from pitching forward, but as she gets more control of the balancing muscles and starts to learn what you want, she’ll rely less upon your hand to hold her steady. Then you can gradually give your Greyhound less assistance till you will just have to maintain one hand in position 2 or 3 inches from her neck or chin, to be set to prevent her falling forward; later on you will be able to remove this hand and just dangle the snack just over the level of her head.
Teach Your Greyhound To Sit: Remove the Help Gradually
After constant training your Greyhound will stay seated long after you tell her to. Then she should be set against a wall, so as to provide her help for her back only. Soon after she has learned this and can maintain her position effortlessly, practice with her up against chair legs, cushions or other things that provide her less and less help and support. In the end she will understand how to preserve her stability and sit up in the absence of something to lean on.
Teach Your Greyhound to Sit: Putting It All Together
In the course of all these lessons the words "sit up" will have been ingrained upon her psyche by means of regular repetition. Now here's the final training to teach your Greyhound to sit up whenever she hears the command. Chances are, if she has been properly instructed, you will just have to get her out in the room, display to her a reward, hold it up a reasonable distance from the ground, say "sit" and she'll do so. Then you'll give her the treat while still in place.
The only necessity for excellence is to rehearse with her several times daily until she sits on command and without being shown a reward; give her the treats only after she has obeyed the order.
Teach Your Greyhound Other Tricks
You have now the fundamentals for teaching your Greyhound many other tricks. She now can 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 also can 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 articles of clothing.
In training a Greyhound to tolerate being dressed up, don't try to make her wear too many things simultaneously. Try her at first with a cap. Only after she gets adjusted to that you could put on a jacket and over time introduce her to more clothes.
Take pleasure in "teaching your Greyhound the sit up trick" and most importantly have fun at the same time!
Don't forget to check out these other articles about Greyhounds
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