Most pet parents love to teach their puppies to sit when prompted with a treat or toy. Subsequently, most puppies will sit even if you pretend to offer a treat. Easy peasy. The hard part is teaching your puppy to stay after he sits. We never say “SIT/GET UP” and should never condone that behavior. Teaching stay requires more work by the trainer/pet parent. Sit/stay involves impulse control, which must be taught to a puppy. Impulse control is not preprogrammed into your dog. A puppy as young as eight to ten (8-10) weeks old can be conditioned to control his impulse to stand from a sit, with the correct technique and some form of incentive. I do not use treats as an incentive for behavioral conditioning. I do not use treats, period! Anyone who has trained with me knows this to be true. A treat will work to help a puppy learn to sit, but not to control an impulse. Focusing on the treat in your hand enhances the urge to get up and come to you for the reward.
I will explain in another post why I don’t use treats, showing examples of how training will be doomed to failure or backfire when treats are used.
Here is an example of how to train your puppy to sit/stay. Once your puppy understands the sit command, you can move on to the sit/stay. Training is done on leash. Take your puppy to the door. With your puppy on your left side facing the door, ASK him to sit. I emphasize ASK. That means in a sing-song gentle voice. You can gently pull back on the leash and use your other hand to touch your puppy with one finger on his lower back. If you imagine a line from the front of his thigh across his back, that is where you should place your finger.
Once he is sitting, ASK him to stay, slowly and repeatedly, while holding your right hand up like a stop sign, moving it forward and back for a few seconds. Do not bend over your puppy; that will make him jump up toward your face. You can also try gently shaking the leash in your left hand as a reminder to stay. Open the door with your right hand while telling your puppy to stay. If your puppy stands up, close the door, TELL him “NO,” then ASK him to sit. Repeat a few times till your puppy will sit/stay until the door is held open for the count of five. Then say “OK” and walk out with your puppy.
When successful for a day or two of practicing about ten (10) minutes each time, increase to sit/stay for the count of ten (10) before going outside.
The most important part of training your dog is to have your dog respond correctly to your voice. When you teach your puppy to sit/stay at the door before you open it to go out, using the “going out” part as the incentive, you are establishing a pattern of training using conditioning and obedience your dog will understand, respect, and respond to no matter what you are teaching him.
Additionally, you are laying the groundwork for your dog to sit/stay in other situations; for example, anytime you are walking with your dog on a leash and you stop walking, your dog should learn to sit/stay automatically. He should also sit/stay before you put on his collar and leash, before giving him his bowl of food, when a car is coming, before crossing the street, before you enter a store or business, before being pet, and before greeting a guest entering your home.
The most important reason to teach your puppy to sit/stay early on in his life is to build impulse control. Impulse control is the behavioral conditioning of a puppy to control that knee-jerk, automatic response and have self-control, discipline, and restraint.
Self-control or impulse control will be used in future obedience training lessons, such as go-to-place, down/stay, greeting guests, leave-it, wait, and easy. If you’re not familiar with wait and easy, those commands can be used in situations where your dog needs to learn to walk slowly up or down the stairs or be released from a crate.
Self-control or impulse control alleviates the stress you and your dog feel. But, and this is immensely important, pet parents must maintain self-control as well. You can’t put expectations on your dog that you cannot abide by. Patience and composure go much further in training a puppy than frustration and annoyance.
