Does your dog know what "sit" means?

Hi Kaye,

I haven't done much with Fido the last few days, just normal household
activities. I didn't even carry a clicker and liver. He's been happy to
potter about with me without treats. This morning I had a lovely session
partially inspired by Julies visit and by Jean Donaldson.

I did the Dunbar 'Does your dog know sit'. In my lounge room he knows 'sit'
pretty well. I couldn't find a situation where it didn't work. Standing,
back to him, sitting, sitting back to him and lying down with him at my
head. I interspersed hand que and voice but not both together. He was super
keen this morning. I took him 'on lead' to the road to see how much of our
drive way had been washed away by the wild storms. He stayed pretty nicely
in position. I did a lot of changing direction and pace, all of which he was
up for.

I also worked on 'Stay' by asking him to sit, holding food in different
positions and then clicking if he didn't move. I ended up, after a few
minutes, being able to put a piece of liver on the ground, stand up and then
lean down again and give it to him.

Yesterday the electrical storm activity was incredible. We were blacked out
most of the afternoon and early evening here in the tropical Macedon Ranges.
Fido was pretty keen to sit on my knee. He went to sleep there for an hour
or so. That doesn't happen much. It was pretty frightening.

Julie warned me against getting him to 'chase his tail' because it can
become an obsession with some dogs. It is something he does every now and
then, specially if I'm ignoring, him watching TV or something. Being me,
I've been capturing it. I think it is a bit like tug games: OK to do it as
long as there is a stop button like 'off'. Julie didn't seem to be
convinced.

Funnily enough, we had a visit from a beautiful boxer x staffie. He will sit
and look at a ball for hours hoping it'll move. They told me he will play
games with a big stick for hours by himself as well. He tosses it over his
back, over and over and over damaging his nose til it bleeds. Even if there
are other dogs about he'd rather do his stick trick. Fido has not shown any
of these tendencies. He is more likely to get bored and go onto something
else. Interesting to look at these different personalities in terms of
'drives'. I guess staring at a ball for an hour or two is prey drive gone
wrong and getting bored quickly is puppy stuff.

My own obsession with 'consequences' has settled down (for now?). I am
cutting him a bit more slack and doing things more for fun. It seems the
more slack I cut him the less he needs. There are far fewer things you can
do with a horse just for fun, so motivation is a very different issue.
Leaping that divide is quite an undertaking. In fact I am jumping off a
cliff, because I've never seen a clicker trained dog up close and personal.
Certainly not one trained to a high level.

Cheers,

Richard