ABCs of Behavior Change

Your dog doesn’t know Sit.

I am willing to bet a burrito on the statement above. Now, before you protest and write me off as a nitwitted know-it-all, or try to prove me wrong by asking your dog to sit right now, stay with me for a moment. And bear in mind, I observe and evaluate hundreds upon hundreds of dogs interacting with their owners every year and have done so for a couple of decades now.

I’m not trying to be shocking, I’ve just encountered the same scenario over and over again, probably about 85 percent of the time, and it has great implications for dog/human relations. A great many malignments towards dogs have come from this simple misunderstanding.

So what do we really want when we ask a dog to sit? Is Sit a parlor trick, rump down for a millisecond then back up and bouncing around again? For most of us, no, this is not good enough. What is good enough? What do we really want from our dogs? We need to define it for ourselves before we can successfully teach it.

There are actually several components to teaching a dog to sit on cue at your request. Here are the relevant questions to consider:

What?

Do that that rump on the ground thing when you hear me say the magic word, “Sit”.

When?
Right away, if you please, and, frankly, even if you don’t.

Where?
Right where you are when you hear the word “Sit” (in most cases).

Why?
Because I said so. (For your safety, my comfort, etc…)

For how long?

Until released. Or, as this translates for most humans, “Duration will vary. Just divine how long I need it from you, since I never introduced a release word.”

Do you see where the problem lies? Have you broken down your Sit training into all of the components listed above?

We humans want our dogs to respond to a verbal Sit cue and perform it immediately and correctly every time, regardless of the circumstances or context. We figure if we’ve said the word a few times, or practiced in the kitchen or a dog training class and either given a reward or molded the behavior with a few pushes on the rump, that the dog now “understands” the inherent meaning of the word Sit and should do it for us everywhere and anywhere we ask, forever.

Let’s be honest, most of us haven’t broken it down clearly enough for our dogs to learn and meet our expectations. Attaching a word to something doesn’t make it happen. Breaking down a behavior to all of its components does. Providing clear instructions and incentive does. Practice does. Repetition does. Rewards do. We must employ the basic ABCs (Antecedent – Behavior – Consequence) of behavior change to achieve a reliable Sit.