Teach your puppy to sit and lie down

You’ll notice I use the word cue, not command. You are responsible for prompting your puppy, to let it know what you would like it to do and helping it be able to perform that skills. You cannot demand, or command, a behaviour without teaching it, and why ‘command’ when you can just ask nicely.

Animals repeat behaviour which work for them. So, you need to make sure that doing what you would like them to do is beneficial to them and pays off. We can do that be providing a reinforcer, such as food.

I’d also encourage you to see training your puppy not just as a mean to an end, a way to get a ‘well trained dog’, but a team building exercise, and that should be fun!

Train the puppy in short sessions

Puppies have short attention spans You’ll be interesting for a minute or two and then they’ll have something more exciting to do. This is completely normal and developmentally appropriate when teaching youngsters of any species.

So, keep sessions short, just a few minutes at a time, ideally a couple of times a day.

Teaching a sit

The easiest way to teach a sit is to use a method known as luring.

1. Have some tasty treats ready. You only need tiny pieces, smaller than your little fingernail, but have plenty to hand.
2. Have your puppy in front of you, in a calm and quiet environment.
3. With a treat in your hand, slowly but clearly mov up over the puppy’s it towards, and then up and over your puppy’s head. The puppy should follow your hand with its nose (sniffing at the treat) as its chin comes up, and up, it will very likely drop it’s bottom to the ground. If they don’t, just try again, perhaps a little more slowly, or with the treat a little closer or further away.
4. Once their bottom touches the floor, immediately reward them by praising the puppy and giving them the treat.
5. Keep practising this until your puppy starts to sit as soon as your hand moves towards them, as they have worked out what they need to do to get the treat.
6. Now you can ‘fade the lure’. All this means is taking the treat away and reducing the hand movement. So first you will do just as you were to begin with, but there’s no treat in your hand. As soon as the puppy sits, give them a treat. Keep practising until they will sit each time you move your hand over their head, even though there’s no food in it.
7. Once that’s going well, you can start to reduce how far over their head you are moving your hand. Very slowly over multiple repetitions reduce the hand movement until you can simply move your hand towards them (keep your hand in the same position, the detail matters to your dog, so that might be a fist, or fingers together) and make sure there’s a big reward for sitting.
8. Now it’s a good idea to add a verbal cue in as well as a hand signal as it may be that your dog isn’t looking at you when you ask them to sit. Pick your cue, for example ‘sit’ and say this immediately before moving your hand towards them.
9. If you keep practising this you will find your puppy starts to sit when you say ‘sit’ even before you use your hand cue.

You will probably want your puppy to sit for a period of time, not just sit and get up again straight away. Teaching a stay is hard for puppies and teens as it requires a lot of patience, but you can start with the basics.

• When your puppy has sat in response to your cue, pause for a second before praising and treating them. Over multiple repetitions they are learning that your ‘sit’ cue actually means sit and stay there for a moment.
• Over time you can slowly increase the pause, until your pup can sit, and wait for 10 seconds or so before getting their reward.

Teach your puppy to lie down

The easiest way to teach a dog to lie down is after it has learned to sit.

You can use the luring technique just as you did with the sit, but with a hand movement down towards the ground between the puppy's front legs when they are already sitting. The puppy will then follow your hand down and lie down.

Remember to keep using a treat (lure) in your hand until your puppy is easily following your hand down every time. Then slowly fade the lure (no treat and smaller hand movement) before adding in your cue (‘down’).

You will also need to build the pause in before the treat like with the sit if you want your puppy to stay in the down position for a period before getting up.

Practice, practice, practice

Having taught your puppy in a nice quiet and calm environment where it is easy for them to concentrate, don’t expect them to be able to perform anywhere and everywhere.

You need to ‘generalise’ the behaviour, which means practising, and often refreshing the training, in different places and with different people instructing your dog.

You will also need to slowly build the level of distraction. Here are some ideas of the stage you may want to work through. Practice when:

• Someone else is the room
• You are out in the garden
• A quiet spot on a walk with no people, dogs, squirrels, good smells etc
• During a play session, pause and practice some training
• When on a walk and there are people or dogs in the distance
• When you are out in public, perhaps take them with if you’re picking up their wormers from the vets etc and practice some training in the waiting room

When puppies become teens

When your puppy is moving into adolescence, usually starting at 5-8 months old, it is completely normal for them to ‘forget’ all their training.

They haven’t actually forgotten it, it’s still in there, they just can’t access it and put it into practice very well. Try not to get stressed or angry with them. Teenage brains are structurally and functionally unique, and they will go ‘back to normal’ in time. Lower your expectations and take steps to ensure everyone is safe, for example using a long line rather than relying on your dog to come back when called.