sit…good dog

18May10

Let me start by apologizing for being completely MIA over the past month. A lot of things happening in the workplace wore me out and kept me from updating like I should. I hope to be back on track now.

“Gracie, sit!” Blank stare.

“Gracie…sit!” A slight cock of the head to the left.

I’ve always heard the benefits of training a dog, how it makes them happy to please their owners and they’re actually happier when they’re trained. With my old family dog, we didn’t even try training. The only reason she knew sit was by simple process of elimination spread out over many years.

Gracie will be different, I told myself. So soon after I brought her home, I started her training program.

“Gracie, sit!”

With normal dogs, when you push down on your butt, they sit. So learning sit should be easy. Say “sit,” push down on the but, reward when the dog puts its butt on the ground.

But, as we’ve learned, Gracie is not a normal dog. I said “sit” and I pushed down on her butt. She stood strong. I said it again and pushed down a little harder. Nothing. I pushed down with all the force I had and said “Sit!” She spun her backside out from under my hand and looked at me with an expression that said “You want me to put my backside where?”

I learned from a friend that if you put a leash around a dog’s neck and pull up, it almost automatically puts them in the sitting position, so I tried it.

“Gracie, sit!” I pulled up on the leash. She looked at me strangely and looked away.

It was like she was scared of getting in the sitting position. Over the next few weeks, I slowly wore her down. I pushed down on her backside until she would finally give in and hesitantly place her haunches on the ground. When I gave her treats and petted her after sitting, she looked confused as to why I was so happy. Gradually, she figured it out.

I created a sitting monster. Anytime I had anything she wanted or if she wanted to play or go for a walk, she sat. It was like she figured out that the sitting thing that she’d been so scared of was actually pretty cool.

But I was happy because she responded to my command (inside, at least) almost every time I told her to sit.

Onto the next step: “Down.”

Now that I had her sitting, it was time to take her obedience to the next level. I’d have her sit, hold the treat in front of her nose and bring it slowly to the ground. At first, she just bent her head farther and farther trying to get to it.

With her awkwardly long legs, Gracie looks all tangled up when she sits and tries to lay down. Eventually, she started laying down when I brought the treat down, sliding her front paws out slowly until her belly finally plopped on the ground.

Success, I thought. But now I had created a laying down monster. If she’s excited about something I have or something she wants to do, and I say “Sit,” she skips that stuff and just lies on the ground. I say “no” and pick her back up, then try again.

Plop. Laying down again.

Even if I do get her in the sitting position, I can tell she’s just waiting to lay down. Her left-front paw lifts off the ground in anticipation. When I finally say “Down!” she brings her paws up and slams on the ground.

It’s not perfect, but it’s a long way from the cocked head looks I got when I started.

Now we’re working on sit and stay and I have a 20-foot leash that I haven’t broken out yet, but will soon.

Maybe one day I’ll be able to walk her outside without a leash and she’ll listen to me! A man can dream.

Gracie and I are most definitely a long way from this, though.

Filed under: Uncategorized   |  Leave a Comment