Sit?

When, where and how do dogs sit?

Sit is usually the first people teach their puppies, without thinking about the consequences or why they do it.

We wanted to know more about the sit, so many years ago we started the sit study among my dog trainer students, and it has been an ongoing study for 20 years now, with amazing results. Several thousand dogs have been observed, and we learnt many things we did not know before.

First, we learnt that if dogs have the choice, they do not sit very often. They stand, lie down, and sit in some particular situations.

It is partly related to breed, age, structure, and physical health, so can vary from dog to dog, but in general all dogs sit much less by choice than we ask them to. It is not the preferable thing for them to do, and we need to listen to them. Nature knows best.

Looking at the reasons for that, we could clearly see what it was about

It takes a lot of muscles and power to sit down and get up. It takes a long time for babies to get muscles and strength enough to do it. Also for puppies. They simply have not muscles enough to do all the sitting we ask of them, and they will get pain, and jeopardize the joints by doing it too often and too long. Therefore, they sit crookedly, stretching legs forward, and lie down quickly. It gets too painfull. - During training sessions they are sometimes asked to sit 10-20 and up to 60 times. Imagine how those muscles might ache and bother the puppy. Try to do it yourself!
The same will happen when they get old and lose muscles again. Never ask an old dog to sit! It might very well cause him great pain. - Some dogs have a structure that is not good for sitting - like hounds, with their long thighs.
When puppies are born, they are not complete, and X-rays show that joints are not connected to the sockets yet, they actually float around. They will slowly grow to connect, but it takes many months. Making them sit means they might pop out of position because there are not muscles enough either to keep them in place. That can cause damages for life.

My students observed dogs sitting when they wanted to, and the results were overwhelming:
Hounds in most cases never sat. They lied down directly. Dogs with health problems the same. Old dogs too. Healthy strong adult dogs sat, but far from as much as we ask them to. One dog sat once in a 3 month period.

Studies like that tell us much about what is natural and right for dogs, and we should respect that.

Reasons for sitting:

First and foremost, they sat down when they needed to look at something at a distance. Then they have to raise their heads and curve the neck to be able to do it, because of the position of the eyes. The neck gets painful after just seconds, so they sit down to straighten out the curve of the neck. - This was the overwhelmingly highest number of why they would sit down.
Secondly, they sat as a mid-station between lying and standing.
Then far down on the list came sitting as a calming signal, trying to calm someone down.

We also had learnt behaviour, so if you ask your dog to sit when getting food, going out the door and so on very often, they will do it by habit. But that does not mean it is good for them.

Should you ask your dog to sit?

I advise you to observe your dog first.

Does he sit down easily, or does it look a bit hard, doing it slow, not willingly? Then you should not.
Do you know that your dog has a physical problem, is old or very young and therefore does not have developed muscles yet? Then you should not.
Do you have a hound or dog with hound shape you should not.
Do you have a very heavy breed he will need so much more power to sit and get up that you should not ask him either. And absolutely never a puppy from a heavy dog breed.

Observe your dog sitting:

Does he sit down straight when he sits by himself, or does he sit with one or two hind legs stretched forward, sit on one «ham», or in other awkward way? Then I would not ask my dog to sit ever. He should choose to do it by himself.

Studies by some Veterinary high schools showed that:

Sitting for more than a couple of minutes disturbed the blood circulation so much that the occular pressure could make a dog get sight problems or even get blind if they had to do it often.

Conclusion:

You can ask your dog to sit if he is not a very young dog, an old dog, has physical problems or has a hound structure, or being big and heavy.
Even adult, healthy, muscular dogs should not sit often and for long, so keep it to a minimum.
Let dogs choose if they want to sit, lie down, or stand. That is their right to do so.

After having made all kinds of dogs sit in training and competitions for 30 years, I started to notice the above mentioned things, and started to question the need for that exercise, so therefore

I stopped asking dogs to sit 22 years ago, and just told myself that if I ever needed to teach a dog to sit, I could do it without any problems. I have never felt I needed it. Dogs do all I want them to, without any sit commands.

If you yourself want to sit, sit!
If you want your dog to sit, think twice!

Turid Rugaas