Greyhounds can sit?!

Hey! It has been a while since I last typed up a blog post, and I have definitely missed it. I have just had a bit of a writers block and every time I sat down to type, nothing came to my head or fingers.

We have had Chico for about nine months now, and although he is becoming more doglike by the day, he has always remained aloof. Aloof is probably the best way of putting it. When you try and train him, he readily accepts the treats but doesn't look like he really understands why he has been given them. I spent a while trying to train him to shake one of his front paws, while standing. I ended up giving up cause I don't think he fully grasped the concept. My mother started to train him to walk backwards on cue, and he did learn it, although even then we wonder if he really knows what he is doing.

I knew my younger sister had been working with Diego while I was down in Wellington, but it turns out she was working with Chico too. This last weekend, I was up in Whanganui and she showed me this...

To say I was surprised was an under statement, and I made sure that she showed me multiple times to prove it wasn't a fluke. It wasn't. Also, I apologise for the poor photos, but I needed to get photographic proof as it was happening.

My sister obviously has a lot more patience than both my mother and I. Her way of training him was to get him into a corner and do the traditional sit training by lifting the treat so the dog follows it with his nose. From there, because he is in the corner, he will be forced to put his bottom towards the ground. The moment he started to get into a sit position, my sister would click the clicker and reward him. This took multiple training sessions, and a lot of patience to not get frustrated when he wasn't doing what you wanted straight away. After he successfully was sitting in the corner, she slowly left that and now he will sit for treats anywhere in the house. The next step for the two of them is to learn to do the same routine in the backyard, and eventually outside of the house area. Another good thing would be for him to sit longer as at the moment he pops back up quite quickly.

Does your Greyhound know how to sit, or do you know a Greyhound that does? I would love to see photos, you can post them to our Facebook Wall, or Tag us on Instagram!