Training Your Rottweiler to Sit Through Luring
Training your Rottweiler to sit is one of the most important cues to teach whether you own a puppy or an older Rottweiler who never had any training. Rottweiler puppies as young as 8 weeks old can learn how to sit by using simple training methods. The sit cue will come very handy in many different situations. For example, you may want your dog to sit while you put on the leash or you may like him to sit nicely when you are preparing his meal. The sit cue is also a foundation skill that can come handy in future trick training, canine sports or obedience exercises you may wish to build on in the future.
In this article, we will be showing you how to train your Rottweiler through a training method known as luring. You can find more about this training method by visiting the section on luring. Please read this page before proceeding so that you are more familiar on how this method works: using luring to train your Rottweiler. After reading familiarizing yourself with luring, then now you are ready to start. Here is a guide on training your Rottweiler to sit in 3 easy steps. For those visual learners out there, there is a video of this exercise at the bottom of the article.
Items Needed:
To train your Rottweiler to sit, you will need only a few items. You should use some tasty treats that are big enough to protrude from your fingers. If you Rottweiler loves his kibble, you can use that for indoor training sessions, but when you later on practice outdoors or around distractions, you may need higher-value treats. The clicker or verbal marker will be informing your dog that he is doing the exercise correctly and that a treat is on its way. Click the clicker or say “yes” a split second before giving him a treat. Start training your Rottweiler to sit in a quiet room with not many distractions going on.
- Treats
- Clicker or verbal marker (yes!)
- Your Rottweiler of course!
How to Train Your Rottweiler to Sit Using Luring
So here we are in the “meaty” part of article. These steps will guide you through the four easy steps that will train your Rottweiler to sit. If you have any trouble in of these steps, no worries, we have you covered! At the end of this article, you will find a troubleshooting guide on how to solve some common problems you may incur into when training your Rottweiler to sit.
Step 1: Hold your treat as a food lure by keeping it between your index finger and thumb. Let the treat protrude slightly so that your Rottweiler can see it or sniff it and acknowledge its presence.
In this picture, you can see how to correctly hold a food lure in the initial stages of luring. The food lure will be used to guide your dog into the desired sitting position.
Step 2: Place yourself in front of your Rottweiler with your Rottweiler standing. Present the food lure to your Rottweiler. Bring it close to your Rottweiler’s nose allowing him to sniff it. If he nibbles on it slightly it’s fine.Next, start moving the food lure from your Rottweiler’s nose towards the back of his head. Your Rottweiler should be following your food lure.
Tip: do this movement very slowly.
Step 3: Finish the upward hand movement from your Rottweiler’s nose to the back of his head. As your Rottweiler follows the hand movement, he will be looking up and tilting his noise upwards, which will cause his rear legs to bend and start the movement to sit.
Tip: Keep an eye on your Rottweiler’s rear end so that you can notice when it’s about to touch the floor.
Step 4: Click your clicker or say your verbal marker (yes!) the moment your Rottweiler’s rear touches the floor. This tells your Rottweiler that this is the behavior you wanted. Immediately afterward, feed your Rottweiler the food lure you were holding to reward him. Repeat the exercise at least a half a dozen times.
Wait! We are not done yet! After repeating this exercise about half a dozen times, you should notice your smart Rottweiler is getting a hang of it. It’s now time to start fading that food lure.
In other words, it’s time to stop showing food, otherwise you’ll be stuck with a Rottweiler who will go on strike if he doesn’t see any food. In the next upcoming article we will be showing you how to astutely fade the food lure so that your Rottweiler won’t develop an over dependence on it.