Teaching a puppy to sit is not difficult. However, teaching a puppy to remain sitting is slightly more challenging—but only slightly. It just takes patience, gentleness, consistency, and, for our food-driven Labs, a little bit of kibble.
Speaking of kibble, here’s a quick note about using kibble in training: Puppies (and even adult dogs) can easily be overfed, especially when they’re in training. We suggest you measure out exactly the amount you plan to feed your dog for that day and put some of that dry kibble in your pocket or training pouch around your waste. We usually find it easier to train a dog if we have not yet fed him that day, but pay attention to your dog, because sometimes he will be less attentive until he has a little food in his stomach. You be the judge and feed your dog accordingly. I sometimes use about ¼ of a dog’s dry kibble meal in training and then reward him with the rest of his meal at the end of training for the day.
The “Sit” Command
We use a 3-foot lead to introduce a pup to the “sit” command. We always recommend a little running, playing and retrieve time before starting your training. This reinforces the positive and forms a happy bond between you and your pet. To begin training, gently squeeze down on his hind end into a sitting position OR, after facing your pup, gently lift up on the lead until he has no choice but to sit. The second his bum hits the ground, reward him with exuberant praise and a tiny piece of kibble. Repeat this process several times and he will think, “Wow! Whenever my bum touches the earth a piece of kibble appears and pops into my mouth. Amazing!” Continue the process and he will quickly learn to love the magical word ‘sit!’ that produces tasty treats.
We’ve learned so much about the similarities between training dogs and kids, we could write a book about it. It might offend a few people who think we’re treating children like animals, but we don’t see it that way. Love, gentleness, patience, repetition, and consistency are the keys to training any child or animal. You can’t convince us otherwise.
We use treats to train puppies and I’ll admit that some treats were involved in training our toddlers, as well. The trick to training a puppy or a toddler is to catch them in the act of doing something you want them to do and reward them for it immediately with lots of praise and fanfare. You don’t have to use “baby talk,” but a higher pitched and excited voice is surprisingly motivating to both dog and tod’.
Teaching the “Stay” Command
Ironically, the word, “Stay” is seldom in our vocabulary, because we feel it’s unnecessary. “Sit” means stay until we give a new command. But millions of people use the “Stay” command and it makes no difference to us or to any dog.
So, with that said, let’s move on to getting your puppy to sit and remain sitting. First, say, “Sit.” Then hold out your hand with your palm facing the dog like a “stop” signal and take one to three steps back. If the pup’s rear comes of the ground, you have to act quickly. First, make a short growl sound like he’s heard his mama do many times in his life already. Then step toward him and either firmly but gently pull up on his lead OR press down on his haunches until his bum touches the ground. (You can use these bum-to-earth corrections interchangeably.) Say, “Sit” again and repeat until he learns to stay without moving when you back away a few steps. Call him to you, have him sit again, and only then reward him with a treat and praise.
It will usually take only 1-3 days to teach a puppy to sit and remain sitting when you take a few steps back from him. To increase the challenge for him, give him multiple trainers. Getting him to take commands from several different people is extremely helpful. Also, increase the distance between you and your puppy. Move back 5-10 steps (counting 1 step per second) on days 3 and 4, move back 15-20 steps on days 5 and 6, and so forth. We often shoot for a distance of 25-30 steps or seconds. After he has that down, we really challenge a pup by walking away with our backs to him. Then we progress to what is more distraction training. We run away from him, run in circles around him, bring other kids and dogs around to tempt him, etc. As long as he keeps his bum on the ground (even if he twists around to keep his eyes on you), he deserves a reward.
Mental Fatigue Warning
Training a Lab puppy as young as 8 weeks old is much like training a toddler. The attention spans of each are very short. That doesn’t mean they can’t learn; it just means they have to be trained in short spurts so they don’t get frustrated. A young puppy between 8 weeks and 16 weeks of age can usually handle only 2-4 ten-minute sessions of any series of lessons per day. Watch your pup and if you see any signs of mental fatigue, giving up, boredom or disinterest, you can either take a fun break of running, playing, and having him do a few retrieves or end all training for the day and try again tomorrow. Oftentimes you’ll find that a pup is progressing well for days in a row and he’ll suddenly act as though he has forgotten all you have taught him. Don’t worry about it. It just means he’s having an “off” day, in which case, you can invest in quality playtime and forget about training for that day. Inevitably his brain will be refreshed and ready to work the following day.
Frequently Asked Questions
A question people often ask is, “Does my pup need a correction if his paw comes off the ground or he twitches while I’m backing away?” The answer is, if he decides to correct himself by not picking up his bum from the ground and not moving toward you, he does not need a correction. Sometimes a dog will fully stand and then sit back down. This is fantastic! Learning to correct himself is a huge step in the learning process. When your dog does this, call him to you right away, have him sit again and reward him with praise and a treat. Sometimes you’ll be backing away from a dog and get about 20 steps (when you’re trying to go 30) and the pup starts running toward you. In this case, growl a little and take several quick steps toward him. Ninety percent of the time a dog will correct himself by immediately sitting again, which is fantastic, because self-correction is the best correction. Any time you can get your dog to think and choose to obey of his own volition, you know you’re a successful dog trainer.
Another question people ask is, “What if my pup sits perfectly, but suddenly breaks and comes to me at exactly the same time I whistle or give the ‘Here’ command?” In this case, we just ignore the possible error on the dog’s part and reward him anyhow. It shouldn’t happen more than one or two times, but it just means he thinks he has obeyed your command, which actually reinforces your training and does not adversely affect his learning in any way.
Another question people ask is, “What if my dog lies down when I back away, rather than remaining in a sitting position?” We personally believe that if your puppy is remaining in one place where you commanded him to stay, he is obeying your command. Therefore, we do not correct this “error.” We do teach the “Down” command (which means “Lie down”) to young pups and it’s almost as easy as the “Sit” command. However, getting a dog to remain sitting or sit back up when he’d rather lie down requires some negative correction. Depending on the dog, we usually find that negative training does not work effectively until a puppy is older, because it can break their spirits and make them less compliant. If you want to teach your dog “negative” commands like the “heel” command and other correction-related commands, we suggest waiting until the dog is about 4 months old.
