Ok, just making sure, this could be interesting to do with only two hands!

OTOH, standing like a statue waiting for quiet sits (the other method I mentioned) involved no markers/rewards for me, and the walk was the goal.

"Sit," though, had been taught with markers.

Am I muddying the waters? I have adults, and they had "sit" under their belts. It was just loud excited sit that I stood like a statue, no walk, until it was over.

 Quote: Jennifer Lee

Ok, just making sure, this could be interesting to do with only two hands!

No no!

Leash casually in one hand and not in use at all until calm sit was achieved, with leash in your hand.

If it makes anyone feel better, as soon as the leash comes out in my house, Danke does 6-foot-high leaps-from-standing.

I don't do "sitz" when that craziness starts. After I get done laughing at the crazy GSD who think she's a Mal, it's "platz". I like to enforce the "your feet belong on the ground, dummy" idea. LOL

Dogs.

No I understand what you are saying and I was even before then second guessing whether or not I really needed to use the clicker for this.

He knows sit, and can hold it in almost all circumstances, the leash being the one time he breaks the sit and loses all self control.

Here is a summary of how it has gone up until now, Standing in hallway I pick up the leash from the hook and he comes running full speed, skids to a stop while sitting and wiggles all over.

I bend over to clip the leash and the second I start to move towards him he breaks the sit. Breaking the sit in this instance doesn't mean just standing up though. It means ricocheting off the hallway walls, rolling over and over on the floor and just in general being a total spas.

Up until now I have put him back in a sit a few times then said screw it and physically restrained him between my legs or by sitting on him and then clipping the leash.

Once the leash is on he goes to the front door and sits nicely waiting for me to be ready to go.

Also we go through this entire routine when I put his prong collar as well...but I imagine the training is the same.


As a side note I am going to try clicker training a kitten.

As I am typing this the rescue kitten has jumped on the keyboard no less then 15 times, and is now sitting on my shoulder like some deranged parrot and chewing on my hair. All the while purring so loud I can barely hear myself think.

She is VERY people friendly and really really likes me, so maybe she will enjoy some clicker training.

 Quote: Connie Sutherland

 Quote: Jennifer Lee

Ok, just making sure, this could be interesting to do with only two hands!

No no!

Leash casually in one hand and not in use at all until calm sit was achieved, with leash in your hand.

right.... at first.

but then eventually I would be clicking and treating sitting calmly while bending over with the leash, and then for clipping the leash on.

I took a similar approach to how I trained my pup not to run out of the crate the second I opened the door.

In the case of the crate, I would open it slightly and when he tried to make a break for it, I would close it so he couldn't get out. I repeated this exercise, opening the door slightly more each time, until he would sit patiently until I told him "okay."

In the case of the leash, Max would get excited when I got the leash out. First, I told him to sits. Then I bent down to attach the leash. The second he moved from the sit, or tried to lick my hand, or do whatever other than sitting, I would say "nope" and stand back up and tell him to sit again. I just repeated this until he sat patiently while I attached the leash.

Remarkably, much like the crate door, he learned very quickly.

So I guess I'm doing the same thing, only without marking the calm moment. My only concern is that once you mark, the exercise is over. So I wouldn't mark until after the leash is attached.

Well I just got done working on this with him and it took nearly 30 minutes to get the darn leash on him.

I also went through 2 strips of bacon chopped into bits. I was going for high value treats to compete with the distraction of the leash.

But I didn't have to wrestle him or sit on him so that is progress!

I think that my first sessions would have been nothing more than sit-with-leash-in-view, but that's OK. You have progress, and that beats philosophy!

Well we needed to go for a walk, which means the leash needed to actually go on. LOL
I will still work on short sessions with only holding the leash while he sits calmly.