Sit Happens

Training Tuesday

Sit happens a lot in my world.

Both with the 'h' and without the 'h'. In fact, it has been really interesting to work with one of my advanced dogs and then pull one of the puppies out of the car. The advanced dog feels like an old comfortable shoe. We mesh instantly and sits happen without cues, include duration, and happen with minor tweaks.

With the puppies, not so much. I find myself resorting to one thing almost all of the time at the moment.

We work on sit.

Everywhere.

All the time.

For duration.

With distractions.

I am in the throws of fully generalizing the sit behavior with all of the puppies. Of course, the two older ones are much further along and not not only are transitioning from just sitting, to where they are sitting, how long they have to sit, to sitting with a multitude of other distractions going on and even when I throw in my diversions while they are holding a sit. (Yes, I differentiate between diversions and distractions, listen to the episode on the 'D's of Detection episode on the K9 Detection Collaborative podcast to learn more).

Do I find all this 'sit' boring.

Oh yes.

Is it needed to have fluent behavior.

Absolutely.

Sit is at the CORE of almost every behavior I ask my dogs to do. Their trained final response is a sit. They sit at heel. In a crowd, they can be asked to sit quietly and watch/sniff. They must sit before a bird is thrown for hunt tests.

Therefore, this is a foundational behavior and must be fluent in multitudes of situations. It is also the position for where we begin our detection work, our hunt test work, directional work, and obedience.

Am I sick of working on sit? You betcha!

But I do it. Because in 6 months, when I'm working my dog in a crowded environment and they hit odor and sit fast and stay until released....

I know I have created a fluent behavior.

That is my goal.

What 'boring' behavior are you working on?

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