I’ve spent 20 years watching people cue their dogs to sit. Cue them at the vet, cue them out on walks, cue them before giving them a treat or their meal or affection. The humans will nag them and repeat the cue if it doesn’t happen. Stick a treat in front of their nose. Move closer to them. Do what they can to get their dog to sit.
It turns out, humans love to tell their dogs to sit!
I once was one of those humans. I’d ask my dog to sit before going outside, sit when they’re excited that I’m home, sit for their meal. Sit for a picture (that I want!)
We find this incredibly reinforcing. The dog performs a behavior because they listened to me, they responded to me, and now they can’t do any other behavior that I don’t want them to do, because this is an “alternative behavior.”. How wonderful!
Here’s the issue I see: if we teach our dog to sit on cue, we now have the temptation to ask our dog to perform this behavior all the time. Even other people will likely ask our dog to perform the behavior. People love to ask a dog to sit!
But over time, with compassion at the forefront of how I raise my dogs, I have realized that a sit isn’t necessary.
I want to teach my dogs that they can request things from me in any way that is most comfortable for them. That they can get their meals simply by being relatively calm. That if they’re excited to see me when I get home, that’s ok, because I am excited to see them as well! And that as long as they don’t overwhelm me, they can welcome me and express their feelings however they see fit. If they offer a sit, well that’s just great! But they don’t have to.
I raise my puppies using philosophies that emphasize teaching life skills such as patterns and decompression and relationship building. And in turn, I have found that I simply do not even have to teach sit, it’s not a skill that is necessary in my dog’s life.
We should also always consider the possibility of pain or discomfort for our dog when asked to be in a sitting position. If there’s even the slightest risk of that, I’m not cueing the dog. Ever. Sit on pavement? Sigh…
My dogs live a very calm, well-structured life and I feel that their lack of understanding the sit cue has no negative effect on their behavior. And of course we have gentle boundaries that maintain that peace, yet those boundaries never require a cue or position. Instead of focusing on teaching sit, I focus on relationship, calmness, clarity, understanding, happiness, meeting needs, and so much more.
I’m not sure I’ll ever teach my current young dog, Sunday, the sit cue. If I need the position for a sport someday, which I’m sure I will, I’ll just call it something else. That way I have complete control of who, how, and when she is asked to sit!
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