I am often approached with people who have a new show puppy wanting the benefits of puppy class but not wanting ‘to confuse the puppy’ by teaching sit. Most likely their breeder has been showing dogs for a long time and gave them the advice that dogs can not learn sit and stand or that if you teach a dog both cues they will not be reliable in the show ring. Since it is a big no-no for a show dog to sit in the ring I can underdstand the fear but I have some information to offer. Sometimes people still won’t teach sit to their dogs and I tell them they can join puppy class and teach stand in place of sit if that is what they want to do. It would not be helpful of me to ban them from class and deny them the rest of the information that will likely help them greatly just because of a silly difference in opinion. I also recommend private lessons to polish the stand until it shines. Now for the facts:
First, dogs can learn cues typically with; visual (hand signs), auditory (words or whistles etc.), kinesthetic (touches) and even sometimes tastes and smells are cues for dogs. This tells us we can teach an obscure cue for sit (maybe 2 long whistles) and the dog will not hear that while in the ring and therefore will not respond to a cue that was never given. Right?
Second, dogs can learn many cues. I know lots of dogs that know over 50 words and some that know over 100, sit and stand are only 2 cues – you tell me if you think they can handle that.
Whether you decide that sit is an important cue or not the message here is that puppies learn a lot more from puppy class that sitting when told. Socialization is the main focus of puppy class and it is such an important concept that even trainers make sure their puppies are enrolled in puppy classes. Really.
