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Ask Yvette

Dear Yvette,

My dog will only sit when asked some of the time. I know Baxter knows what sit means. If I pull out a cookie, he sits immediately. But other times he is so defiant and dominant it drives me crazy. How do I make him learn his place?

Jennifer

If I were a betting person, I'd have to say that your dog probably does not actually know what sit means.

I can almost hear the protests. Most people swear their dogs know what sit means. The truth is that most dogs guess.

There are several common reasons a dog does not “get it.” The first is a very common training error that nearly everyone makes unless they know about it.

When people get a puppy they lean over the small dog and ask for a sit. They sit in a chair and lean forward to ask for a sit. Then real life happens. The owner is relaxed on the couch and says, “Fido – sit.” The dog ignores the request. The owner falls into a barrage of, “Fido…Fido…Fido!!…sit…sit…SIT!” The annoyed owner sits up and leans over the dog in frustration. Fido then sits.

The owner is convinced that the dog needed firmness. The poor dog is relieved that the owner finally gave some direction that made sense. The owner thinks they taught, “sit.” The dog actually learned, “Bending at the waist is a command to put your behind on the ground.”

The poor dog never needed firmness. The dog needed clarity.

There are other accidentally commands that are common. For some reason, people often fold one arm to their chest when asking for a sit. When the human is not standing or preoccupied, the hand signal disappears.

Most dogs also cue into the final sounds of a word. So words like: sit, spit, trip, bit all turn into a jumbled mess.

Novice owners also fall into command traps. Listen to people speak to their dogs. Once time they will say, “Fido sit.” The next time it becomes, “Sit Fido.” Or how about, “Fido sit down.” So what do you want? Do you want a sit or do you want a down? Dogs do not understand English let alone grammar. How about the person who falls into nagging? “Fido…Fido…Fido! For goodness sake…Fido!” People, who ask for nothing, get nothing.

Some people become determined to teach clarity through puppy push-ups. This is an exercise where the dog repeats the sit, stand and down commands. Over and over the dog does, “Sit – stand – down.” Ask that dog to, “Sit – sit – sit.” and you'll still get, “Sit – stand – down.” The dog memorized the pattern, not the words.

Even if you are a fabulous teacher, other factors can wash out your work. Anxiety will always interfere with learning. Dogs cannot work effectively if stressed. It's not much different than asking a person who is afraid of spiders to do math in a room filled with them. Fear of spiders will keep you from concentrating.

Occasionally, health issues and former learning can also affect the work of the best teacher. Deaf dogs cannot hear commands. Dogs with bad hips find it painful to obey. It can take some rescued Greyhounds months to learn to sit on command.

As a human, it is your job to ensure that you have worked through each and every factor before assuming defiance. Your next step is to assess motivation.

Next week – how to motivate a dog to sit for everything.

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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