Dog Training The Gentle Way – The Sit Command

Dog Training using positive reinforcement techniques is the gentle and humane way to teach your dog the rules. You will be fostering a loving relationship with your dog instead of intimidating and scaring your dog into submission. In this article you will learn the basic steps to teach your puppy or adult dog to sit.

1. Put a leash on your dog so they cannot wonder off while you are working with them.

2. Put some treats in a closed fist so they can smell them but not see them. If your dog sees the treat each time he will learn to only obey when you have food in your hands.

3. With your finger draw an invisible line from the dog's nose between the eyes to the top of the head as you say sit. The head will move back to follow your hand and therefore push the bottom down to the ground.

4. As soon as the dog's bottom touches the ground, say "Good Sit" and give them a treat and praise them excitedly.

Below are some Dog Training Tips for successfully training your dog to sit.

1. Keep your bait hand low. While moving your hand over the dogs head, make sure that your hand is not too high or the dog will jump to reach the treats. Your hand should only be a couple of inches over the dogs head.

2. Do not force the dog. Resist the urge to push the dog's bottom down if they are having a hard time learning how to sit. Just be patient and keep trying to slowly draw a line over their head with the treat and they will learn.

3. The dog will need to be weaned off the treats. During the first week use the treats heavily. During the second week start mixing the treats up giving every other time or every third time while continually using praise and excitement. After about 3 weeks treats will no longer be needed and you will be the only reward your dog will need.

4. Even after you wean off the treats, continue to use the sit hand signal as well as your voice. The benefit of using hand signals and voice commands simultaneously is so when you are in a situation where you cannot use your voice to give your dog some direction, such as talking on the phone, you can give your dog a quiet hand signal without disrupting your phone call.

5. Label your commands. When giving your dog a training command, label the action, not the dog. When your dog sits, tell them good sit, not good dog. Your dog will learn the command faster because they hear the command word again and they are praised for the specific command.

6. Keep training sessions short. If you are training a puppy, keep your training sessions under 10 minutes. It is best to have several short training sessions per day so that your dog will not get distracted.

7. Be consistent. Everyone in the family should be involved with training your dog. Children as well as adults should learn the commands so the dog sees ALL humans as dominate and therefore listens and obeys everyone equally.

About The Author
Jennifer Ivey is a positive reinforcement http://dogtrainingbehavior.blogspot.com who writes articles on many dog related topics. Read more of Jennifer's articles at http://www.bestdogarticles.com.

Horse Training: Does Your Horse Have The Feel?

A while back I worked with horse trainer Aaron Mills while making horse training videos for http://www.SuperStarsOfHorseTraining.com

Aaron often used the term "baggage."

By that he meant, if you go to touch your horse's head does he flinch and move it away quickly nearly every time?

Baggage.

If you try to saddle him does he move off and not let you?

Baggage.

Later I hosted a horse training teleseminar with Aaron.

During this informative session, Aaron again talked about baggage.

We talked about how to work through it and to get the horse to trust that the baggage is not going to harm him.

We discussed the horse we filmed and how he did it.

Aaron transformed the horse from a "Don't touch or saddle me" scardey cat to an "Okay... you win...go ahead and saddle me - just be careful" horse.

How'd he do it?

As you watch the video it becomes painfully clear how patient you gotta be when you train a horse.

Another obvious thing is how much work it takes.

The next obvious thing is how often the horse does exactly as Aaron wants, then a few minutes later he doesn't.

That's just something you have to work though. That's where the patience thing comes in because you cannot realisticaly expect the horse to do what you ask every time once he's figured it out.

It takes repetitions.

You have to work through it because there's baggage.

You gotta go slow. You gotta look for the littlest cooperation and reward it.

When the video was done, Aaron had the horse following him like a shadow and was able to put the saddle on him and the horse accepted it and stood still with it on.

What a wonderful exercise it was to watch.

Here's a horse who's nature it is to flee and not trust yet Aaron had the horse following him and trusting him.

I don't care how many times I've seen it or done it, it's awesome to watch and exhilirating to accomplish.

About The Author
Andy Curry is a nationally known horse trainer and author of several best selling horse training and horse care books. He is also well known for finding, interviewing, and filming expert horse trainers and making their expertise available to horse owners who want to learn different horse training tips and secrets and how to solve behaviorial issues with horses. For information visit his website at www.SuperStarsofHorseTraining.com.