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Dear Yvette:

Our dog will only sit if we have a cookie in our hand. We did classes, and Sam did really well. But we want to get rid of the food now. How do we do it?

Marjorie

There are a number of reasons dogs will work only some of the time. Most people assume it has to do with the food. But there are many reasons why dogs appear to only work for treats. Those reasons are often subtle.

When people get a puppy, they often start classes early. People are notorious at using their body posture in predictable ways. They do not just ask Fido to sit. Owners will bend at the waist when talking to their puppies. If the person is sitting they lean forward before asking Fluffy to sit. Many people will also take a the cooking in their hand and bend their arm up.

That's all good and well, but to a dog the exercise looks something like this:

Human bends over and crooks arm in a funny way. Human says something – blah – blah – blah. I sit and get a cookie.

Since dogs are very visual, with repetition they shorten the entire exercise to: When the human bends at the waist and crooks his arm that means sit and get a cookie.

The verbal command of “sit” gets very little recognition because all the body posturing takes over. The dog never really does learn that “sit” means, “sit.”

When the owner has no food, they fail to do the body signal. Then they assume the dog has learned to only work for food. With many of these dogs, if you keep your mouth closed and do all the posturing they comply very well. Smart dog.

Being aware of your body posture and training around it is one way to avoid a common training trap. But there is another. Some people want a higher level of obedience. They want to ask a dog to sit and have the dog understand in any situation. This takes work. Anyone can teach a sit at your ankles. Try asking your dog to sit while you are in another room. Try asking your dog to sit when you are lying on the ground. Try asking for a word that rhymes with sit – like spit. Can you fool your dog? I guarantee that most dogs do not know the command nearly as well as people presume.

Once you teach your dog an easy sit, the next step is to add distractions. Then you work on distance and proofing in a variety of locations. You think of different situations and train in them.

Then you work similar commands and proof them. Does your dog really know the difference between sit and down? Some dogs learn puppy pushups. Pushups are repetitions of sit – stand – down. Over and over again the owner practices. Then a smart mouth like me comes in and asks for sit – sit – sit. And you can bet the dog does sit – stand – down. The words were again ignored, but this time for a pattern.

If you want to take your dog to the next level, you need to become more astute as a handler. Next week, how to avoid another training pitfall.

Yvette is an award winning pet writer and pet behavior columnist. She also is the author of Meeting Milo, a North American dog bite prevention program to reduce the approximately 2 million children bit by dogs annually. She is the owner of AwesomeDogs.ca and works as a behavior consultant in London, Ontario.

This column was originally featured in The Londoner
See more of Yvette... www.awesomedogs.ca
www.meetingmilo.com

Yvette has 2 dogs of her own, KIKI and KAYA. Take a look...

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