# How teaching my dog "place" helped me teach him "sit pretty"



## taquitos (Oct 18, 2012)

I've been trying to teach Meeko "sit pretty" (which I call "pretty" to avoid confusion) for a while now, but each time I tried luring him into the position, he would just stand up straight on his hind legs (which he knows already as "up").

I couldn't figure out how I could just get him to sit pretty! So I eventually gave up and I started teaching him other things. Well, today I tried again, but I decided to use a specific "place" for him to train on.

I got this idea from another thread on here where people were asking how to build core strength in dogs (I think it was littlesoprano who started this thread). One of the other members suggested to use an unstable surface and to teach the dog to perch on it.

Well, Meeko is not skilled enough for that, but I took an old shoebox and taught him "place", meaning he was to perch on it. After that, I started practicing some basic tricks with him (sit, down, paw, etc.), and out of curiosity, I tried the "sit pretty" again by luring him once more. Surprisingly, he got it really quickly, and within four or five repetitions, he had learned "sit pretty"!

We are going to have to work on doing it on other surfaces, but I learned how useful it was to teach my dog "place"/perching  I think "place" is teaching him better body awareness, which I think will be useful in teaching him other tricks too!

Does anyone have any other suggestions as to what I can teach him using the shoebox?


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## petpeeve (Jun 10, 2010)

Twist and spin ??? maybe not so much to teach him, but to tighten it up / proof it. Don't know if it was mentioned in the other thread but spinning on a perch would probably be good for core and confidence building too.


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## taquitos (Oct 18, 2012)

petpeeve said:


> Twist and spin ??? maybe not so much to teach him, but to tighten it up / proof it. Don't know if it was mentioned in the other thread but spinning on a perch would probably be good for core and confidence building too.


Thanks for the suggestions!

I'm going to try getting him to spin on it 

I also taught him "front", which is for him to put his two front paws on the box only. I wonder if I can teach him to back up onto it, eventually teaching him to do a handstand as well hmmm


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## starrysim (Dec 2, 2012)

This may be a silly question, but what's sit pretty?


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## petpeeve (Jun 10, 2010)

Butt firmly on the ground, trunk vertical. Some people call it begging, or simply 'beg'.


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## Emily1188 (Jun 21, 2011)

I LOVE the place command. It is useful for so many things. The way I use it with my dogs, it can be used for keeping positions clean (preventing creeping when doing UD style signals exercise), useful for retrieve work, etc. I also condition them to relax on the platform if they aren't immediately engaged. IOW, if I tell them "place" and then ignore them, they will roll onto their hips and chill out until further notice. 

Here are the young bitches working on it yesterday while I had a snack:










I bought that pink cot specifically for portable place work, it folds up just like a camping chair.


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