A 'good dog' doesn't need to sit

‘Sit’ is probably the first command you taught your dog, right? Have you ever wondered why you asked him to sit? Or rather, why does he need to sit to get the treat? What does the command mean to him besides working for a reward?

Obedience and impulse control training have become so common in the last decade that we often forget and misunderstand why we teach dogs what we teach them. Ari, an eleven-year-old golden retriever with arthritis, is asked to sit about ten times before receiving his treat. Sitting and then standing up again ten times for a dog with joint problems does more harm than good. Besides being extremely painful, it starts to wear out muscles and joints. As he sits down carefully, trying to figure out a way that causes the least pain, he is asked to stand up again.

Do you know why dogs sit? Turid Rugaas, a Norwegian dog trainer, gives three reasons for it and none of them involves a dog having to work for its food. Look at your dog’s snout and the position of his eyes. Now, decide whether it is easier for a face like this to look at things behind it by standing up or sitting down? One of the main reasons dogs sit is for them to look at what is happening behind their back. Another quite obvious but ignored reason for dogs to sit is when they are tired. They are tired enough to sit but not tired enough to lay down. The third, and relatively new reason - dogs sit as a calming signal.

Prince is a small Indian Pariah puppy with a rather independent streak. His owners make him sit about thirty times a day until he gets the command right. Soon after, Prince starts to limp and hobble. Why? A puppy’s limbs are not fully developed until the age of one and repeated movement in the same direction wears them out even before they start to gain strength.

We need to start thinking about why we’re asking our dogs to behave in a certain way for us. Is it to discipline? Is it to work their brain? Or, is it purely because we’ve seen others teach their dogs the same tricks? As for working the brain - well, there are several other ways to do that - puzzle toys, interactive games, agility courses, teaching them commands that use more of their brain than their muscles - asking a dog to find you and playing treasure hunt.

We teach our dogs to ‘dance’, to ‘paw’, to ‘roll’, to ‘high-five’, to ‘clap’ etc. Why are we asking that of them? A disciplined dog isn’t one who knows to ‘sit’ and ‘lay down.’ Ben, a five-year-old Labsky, sits and lays down perfectly, but he isn’t someone you’d call ‘disciplined’.

His owner has a hard time calling him back when he runs off to kill chickens, asking him to ‘wait’ while they pour his food into a bowl, or when they want him to ‘leave’ the piece of barbequed chicken alone. Until very recently, I was one among those who believed that teaching a dog commands like ‘sit’, ‘down’, ‘paw’, ‘shake’ etc. made them work their brain/work for their food. But that’s far from the truth. Once a dog has learned these commands, she doesn’t ‘use her brain’ to perform them anymore, it happens because of muscle memory and learnt associative behaviour.

It’s like riding a bicycle, you struggle the first few times and work your head around it, and then, you don’t use your brain to figure out how to move your legs on the
bicycle. If we want better, healthier relationships with our dogs, we need to ask ourselves why we teach them what we teach them. Learn of other ways to discipline a dog - teach them the benefit of ‘waiting’ to receive something; work their brains by making them realise that it is better to ‘leave-it’ than to give in to impulse, and as for the fun of making your dog do something, make sure it is fun for the both of you - playing interactive games, running through agility courses, working through treasure hunts, exercising together etc. A dog who is rewarded after successfully working an agility course appreciates the reward much more than a dog who is asked to ‘lay down’. That said, not every ‘good’ dog needs to know how to ‘sit’.