Things You'll Need:
- A clicker
- Small (about pea sized), soft dog treats
- Encouragement and praise
-
Step 1
Assuming you and your dog are familiar with the concept of positive reinforcement training and clickers, start out in a quiet place inside the home or yard and have your dog's treats and a clicker ready.
-
Step 2
With your dog interested in what you're doing (or the treats), take a treat in your hand. Small, soft treats work best because they don't take forever for the dog to eat, which makes training faster and easier. Let him smell the treat but don't let him have it -- yet!
-
Step 3
With the treat in hand, start at your dog's nose and slowly begin moving your hand with the treat backwards, just slightly out of his reach, toward the base of his skull. He may try to jump or lunge, but ignore it or simply say, "nope!" If he sits, click the clicker once and give a treat. You can also throw in some praise and petting if you'd like.
-
Step 4
Repeat step 3 for several minutes. Once he's consistently sitting, you can now add the command word -- "sit".
-
Step 5
Your goal is to get him to sit when he hears the word "sit", without using the lure so much. Keep in mind that you still want to reward him for the behavior, but you want to fade the lure out as soon as possible.
Only begin fading it out once you're reasonably sure he understand that hearing "sit" means "my butt hits the floor NOW!" Eventually, with enough patience and practice, you'll be able to fade out the treats as well.
