No matter if you bought a puppy or adopted an adult or senior dog from a shelter, training them is part of your new responsibility. One of the easiest commands to start with is “sit”, a basic training behavior on which more advanced commands are based. Sitting prevents unwanted behaviors, improves the relationship you have with your dog, and strengthens your position as leader.
There are several ways to train your new dog to sit, one of which, clicker training, is gaining popularity. Clicker training uses only positive reinforcement. Simply put, you have a device called a clicker that makes a clicking noise when it is pressed. At the exact time your dog does the behavior you want you click and then give a reward. Your dog associates the click with something desirable (e.g. food), and will thus want to learn.
Before starting to train commands you have to let your dog know what the click means. At the start of your first session, just click the clicker and give a treat. Repeat this several times until your dog looks at you when they hear the click. You can then start training a command in one of two ways, capturing or luring.
Capturing is somewhat informal; when you see your dog sit, click at the exact moment they do and give them a reward.
Luring is more structured:
1. Chose a quiet place to train, and spend a couple of minutes with your dog clicking and giving a treat to reinforce the meaning of the clicker.
2. Use a treat to lure your dog into a sit, moving it from just above their nose over the top of their head. As soon as they sit, click and reward. If your dog has problems with a command you can break it down into steps, clicking as they move in the right direction towards the final goal (sitting in this case).
3. After a few sessions your dog will start to sit when it sees the clicker. At this stage you should add the sit command or hand signal. From here on, only click and reward when your dog sits when you have given the cue, ignore your dog if they sit at other times.
4. Once you dog is reliably sitting on cue, introduce another command (e.g. stay or down) using the same technique.
As with all training, make formal sessions less than 15 minutes long, but remember to have your clicker and treats close by so you can capture new behaviors. Don’t be disappointed if it takes some time to train your new dog to sit. Be determined, persevere, and reward any progress that is made.
