Teach Your Dog To Sit Pretty With Ambassador Jordan

“I’m Jordan and I love dogs. I want to be a professional dog trainer when I grow up.” Jordan’s family has a dog-training facility. Her dog already knows quite a few advanced tricks.

At the Canadian Pet Expo, Jordan taught Kilo the Pug (everyone’s favourite “DIY dog”) how to “Sit Pretty”. Watch this video to see how she did it and read the instructions below.

Teaching A Dog With Positive Reward Based Training

Jordan's dog Boots sit pretty — “Sit Pretty” is one of many tricks my dog Boots knows

Jordan’s parents taught her to use positive training techniques with all their dogs. Positive training means that you reward your dog for doing good things. It’s all about telling your dog “Good job” so they remember that you like that behaviour instead of telling them “No” when they do something bad.

Any trick can take a week or two for your dog to learn the basics, then they need even more time to get good at it so it’s important to practice every day and keep rewarding them so they don’t forget.

Have an adult or expert handy when you start training and always keep yourself and your dog safe and keep things fun.

How To Teach “Sit Pretty”

A few things to remember if you want to teach your dog this trick:

This trick is quite advanced. To learn “Sit Pretty” your dog already needs to know the command “Sit”.
This trick makes your dog pull themselves up and balance sitting on their hind legs so make sure that they don’t fall on something or hurt their backs.
Your dog also needs some “core strength” or stomach muscles to pull and hold themselves up. Some dogs (like Pugs), may not have a very strong core or wide rear to balance on. They may be top heavy or have long backs and this trick is not recommended. You might need to do some exercises with your dog first to build strength or support them while they are doing the trick at first (some people practise with a couch behind to lean against or by letting the dog hold onto their hand like Kilo does- see his little paws holding Jordan’s hand).
Jordan let Kilo the Pug hold onto her hand with his paws and lean because he needs a little “human help” sometimes

Step by step:

With a treat in your hand, get your dog to “sit”.
With the treat still in your hand in front of their face, lure your dog up onto their back legs without standing.
Reward with a yes and a treat for doing good work when they get into the right position.
You may need to support your dog a little at first to help them to get up and to balance.
Do not get mad if they have trouble.
Repeat the trick a few times but not too much at first as you don’t want them to strain anything.
Slowly let your dog lean on you less and less to help them get up on their own.
Introduce the command “Sit Pretty” as they do the trick more so they know that’s what you mean when you say it.
Show all your friends your dog’s cool new trick (but always check you are in a safe space).

This trick may be easier and safer for some dogs to learn than others, so have patience and remember to be careful and to encourage your dog and reward them for trying so the training is fun for both of you!