Un-Learning to sit

[Wolfnatas]

Kitta learned to sit about 6 months ago. She's generally very good at it, and I've been very focused on not overusing the command or repeating myself multiple times to get one sit. However, lately she's started to ignore me a bit. If we're about to go outside and she needs her harness put on, she'll sit fine. But, if she's trying to play in the living room and being a little dangerous and I try to get her to sit... it's like she doesn't even know what the word means anymore. I don't want to have to keep saying it over and over, louder and louder in order to achieve results. Nor do I think I should regress to digging for treats again just to get a simple sit. Any suggestions?

Thanks.

[danyp1]

I would tell her only to sit when I have a leash on her so I can correct her when she does not sit. Setting her up for sucess.
If you have to keep on repeating it and she just ignores you she will think it is ok to ignore you.
Just use sit for alot of things. Like before she goes outside before every meal before you throw the ball or before you pet her. I think she will get the picture than.

[jbach]

If Nikki ignores the sit and I'm not sure if she heard me, I'll use a hand signal. If that fails, I grab her collar and pull her in to a sit.

[danyp1]

Originally posted by jbach
I grab her collar and pull her in to a sit.

That reminds me of the time she started to have selective hearing.. I told her to sit and aus something and she would not I tried to get her collar and she would do a ring around the table with me. That earned her a couple of days of being leashed to me..

[Wolfnatas]

Originally posted by jbach
If Nikki ignores the sit and I'm not sure if she heard me, I'll use a hand signal. If that fails, I grab her collar and pull her in to a sit.

Yeah, that's what I was doing last nite. I guess I just need to leash her to me when she's being like this. I try to make her sit all the time, for dinner, outside, etc.. but if I try to do it when she's being hyper, that's when she ignores me. Which is unfortunate, because that's the time I'd most like her to listen.

[Storm]

Go back to the foundation work, you have obviously used treats for this process and not stabalized the dog using the food as an incentive. With using food the learning process is a long process especially teaching the dog to hold position. But if you have not payed attention to developing these "drives" utilizing them for the teaching process associated with positions and releases and where the dog learns to operate via YOU for what ever the incentive is then sure you have a problem as no treat no response which is what you have now. People try to go the treat route yet don'e cement the whole thing into the dog's head, then they add in compulsion as they don't get the results and at the end of the day you end up with a dog that is confused and that has not been taught to understand that specific concept of training. Also the dog learns to release it self, and still get success in some form for doing this therefore repeating the behavior. Dogs can not be forced into the educational side, they must with the correct attitude first and foremost go through a learning process with focused intentions. That's also why dogs where the whole family is involved with the dog struggle with this aspect as there is just no fixed direction or consistency.

[spidey]

I think training with treats is the way to go, but the only way it works is to put the treats on what's called a "variable reward schedule", which means that once the behaviour is 80-90% reliable with the treat, you start rewarding it at variable and gradually decreasing intervals - you still want to reward occasionally, mind you. I would go back to training the sit again, at some point you have inadvertantly trained your dog that "sit" doesn't mean "everywhere and right away", perhaps by not proofing it enough with treats in various places (pet stores are great places to proof). What I've been doing to speed up sits and downs is play a game where I RUN around the house with my dog chasing me, and then stop randomly and ask for a sit or a down (we're now doing stands and short stays as well), reward when he does it, and run off again. My dog has learned pretty quickly that the faster he does the behaviour, the faster we get back to the fun running part - the goal is to make a quick response the default, which you achieve by doing it enough times that the response becomes almost a reflex.

[valdes43]

PREMACK: Ask for a sit before getting access to any resource. Food, bowl on the floor then release, same for water, go outside, treat, socialize with people or before you release him to play with other dogs.

And then give him a pop on the leash if he doesn't sit when you ask him to (if there are no resources available). He should also learn that sometimes he has to sit just cause you say so. Be as unemotionless as possible when issueing a correction and when your dog does sit redirect him to some type of reward. If the dog's been doing it consistently for 6 months and then just says "nah" then a correction is warranted. But just make sure you do the above also.

Obedience should be the door to a lot of great things but I also won't revolve around his every need. Pet obedience is practical and sometimes dogs must do it. So long you give him an option and issue the appropriate consequences (whether it be reward or correction) the dog will love and respect you.

[rottnkidd]

I'm just curious, but why is she wearing a harness?
kathy