Pretty Please

I've been working on "Pretty Please!" (or sit up) with Pilot for about a week. My criteria is that her butt must remain sitting on the floor while her front paws are quiet in the air in front of her. I want to teach her this so I can help to strengthen her abdonimal muscles and so that she has greater body awareness and proprioception for agility.

I took her to Dr. Lynda Wells last week. Lynda is a local holistic veterinarian who does musculoskeletal adjustments (chiropractic in the human world) and accupuncture. She found that Pilot's thorasic vertebrae were out of alignment and did an adjustment.

Pilot does not seem to have a great awareness of her body or pain when she is playing ball. She skids into things, slips and jumps in some pretty odd ways when she is playing. I'm thinking if we can condition her muscles to protect her spine and make her more aware of her body in time and space (proprioception) then we might be able to avoid injury in the future.

We're doing about 10 reps 2 times a day. I started with a lure 2" from her nose 5 times and then I faded the lure using my fingers pointed up pinching as if I had a lure in them. I need to have a hand signal that doesn't look so much like sit that she can make the distinction. I am using all my fingers pinched together, palm upraised and moving upwards. When she sat up I marked the best try with a clicker or with a verbal bridge and then fed her the reward.

The first day of sit up practice, I just let her experiment with raising up a four or five times. Then I raised my criteria to sit instead of stand up on her back feet. The second and third day she started to develop more of an awareness of the sit position and was more reliable. We took a break on the weekend (work days at the field). The next two days she was able to sit up reliably with my hand close to her face. I also added the verbal "Pretty Please". She is raising up on back feet much less, and seems to have better ability to balance. Today she sat, balanced pretty well and I was able to raise my hand signal farther away from her face. The next step will be practice to tone her muscles by holding the position longer, raising my hand so I can do it from a standing position and eventually have her do it on a verbal.

I'm also thinking this exercise may help her raise her frustration tolerance because she will need to focus for longer periods of time as we add duration and distractions.

Once a week I work with her sister, Remi, while she is visiting. Her progress is good, but more practice definately helps.

If you do this at home, check with your vet to make sure your dog's knees and hips are capable before you start. Different body types may not be able to do "Pretty Please" comfortably. Every dog is an individual and you should proceed at their pace. Think positive - minimize corrections as much as possible - "no", "wrong" and "oops" type words will not help as much as telling the dog what you want them to do. The first day or so you can help your dog allowing them to rest their paws on your arm for balance.
It is fun to see Pilot gain more control of her body on a daily basis. I imagine a couple of weeks before we go to the next big exercise - deep knee bends to strengthen her rear end (tune in for more details).