Corgis can seem impossible at times. They can be loud, jealous, and aggressive toward other dogs and people as well! But why is that? Are Corgis just naturally rude or something?
Absolutely not! Corgis are lovely dogs with a rich history with us humans that shouldn’t ever be taken for granted. So what’s the deal? Indeed we’ve all met a Corgi that is just a bit crazy and uncontrollable at some point.
Well, there’s nothing wrong with these dogs. Two Corgis can have completely different demeanors, even if they’re the same breed. But we can guarantee that the rude one just hasn’t been trained properly!
There are a few basic commands that are crucial for starting this process. We won’t focus on all of them today, just the one that we feel is most important – sitting. So we’ve created a kind of “How To Train Your Corgi To Sit” guide – and we think that it’s going to be just the thing your young Corgi needs!
How To Train Your Corgi To Sit?
We know what you’re thinking – why would a simple command like sitting be considered an essential part of your dog’s training. Well, there are multiple reasons; let us explain.
While there are specific commands that are more important to you and your dog, you teach them how to sit and get the relationship between you two off to a good start. It’s the basics, and you just have to cover it before moving on to the more complicated stuff.
We admit, teaching your dog to come is very important for going outside or just for you to feel confident while walking your Corgi. Puppies get distracted easily, so teaching them how to come back once they start bolting for a nice smell is pretty darn crucial.
But here’s the thing, good luck with starting with the more complicated commands. Your Corgi needs to get into a learning mood, and it needs to learn about the reward system that will inevitably be used in all the training that follows.
Teaching your puppy any command is something that starts in the house – even teaching them to walk beside you while on a leash needs to begin in the living room. This is why something like sitting down helps to get your dog started. It also doesn’t hurt to have such a command up your sleeve for when your puppy starts running around the house!
But don’t be surprised if the teaching goes too well; sooner or later, you’ll be back here wondering – why does my Corgi sit on me? Just to clarify: If your Corgi is sitting on you, it means that it’s looking for attention and some cuddling. So you better give it to them, darn it!
The Reward System
Now, you might have noticed that we mentioned the term “reward system,” but what does it mean? Well, there are many ways to teach a dog to do something, but there’s only one way that has a 100% success rate, and that’s rewarding your dog when it’s done something good.
This system works for pretty much anything, and it’s a crucial tool to use in helping your puppy develop. You see, if not careful, your dog can develop some bad habits in its infant days. There are, after all, certain behaviors that are not exactly sought after that your Corgi could pick up out of nowhere.
Let’s say, for example, that your young puppy follows you everywhere and gets incredibly loud and teary-eyed when you try to leave. While this can be cute, we talked about when we use the phrase terrible habit. If such behavior continues, it can turn into a condition that is called separation anxiety.
So how can you deal with it? You guessed it; the reward system is here to save the day! What you want to do is just wait for your Corgi puppy to show signs of feeling fine while alone and reward that behavior.
This can be done by waiting for them to stop crying after you left. You just close the door behind you and move away far enough so their little noses can’t pick up on your smell anymore. Once they stop crying, you swoop in and reward their courage!
The reward can be anything, but we recommend going for a tasty treat. Nothing too sugary though, health is still the number one priority.
This creates a connection in their brain – something they did got them an excellent threat. The realization may not be instant, so there will be some repetition necessary. But after a while, they will figure out what’s happening.
The Basics
While trying to teach your dog how to learn pretty much anything, the first thing to do while trying to teach your dog how to learn pretty much anything is to get the environment ready. Puppies get distracted easily, so you’ll need to make sure that it’s easy for your Corgi to focus.
So how should you do this? Well, it’s simple – you know better than anybody what makes your Corgi lose focus. Does your puppy pick up scents easily? Or maybe sounds? Heck, it could be all of the above! Some Corgis do tend to break concentration easily, but it’s not their fault!
Corgis have been guardians and herders for thousands of years, so your house or apartment could be a bit too quiet for them. They have a good set of ears on them; those fluffy things are not just for looks! So if you find that your Corgi puppy just can’t stand still, it could be because it’s picking up something, and its instinct is naturally kicking in.
Now, this isn’t to say that all Corgis are impossible to work with. Far from it! They are brilliant dogs, and training them shouldn’t be difficult at all, really. But if you just got the puppy, you might want to let it get used to the environment. Trust us; it will save you a lot of trouble.
So let’s say that you got your Corgi to calm down and you’re both ready to start the lessons. What now?
Show Them The Treat
At the beginning of your Corgis School years, it won’t know that tasty snacks are waiting for them on the other side. We already mentioned this; your puppy needs to get used to the idea of a treat.
So firstly, please give them a couple of treats and let them know there’s more where that came from. If you’ve already done the other things that we mentioned so far, this should grab their attention right away. Don’t let them just munch on all of the treats right away, though!
Not only is it not healthy, but it doesn’t reward anything, which defeats the purpose of the food in the first place. So keep them engaged, but no munching just yet.
The Sound Signal
Once your Corgi figures out that there’s food involved in this whole operation, you need to pick a sound to go along with it. Now, choosing a sound doesn’t mean that your dog will know what the word out means when you’re done; the dog is, unfortunately, can’t differentiate between words, at least not in a way you might think.
The actual sound that you’re producing when you say the word is what grabs their attention. They pick up on the pitch and the way you say it. The thing is, the sense of hearing is so good that you’ll actually think that they recognize the word that you are using for the command.
But let’s take the word sit for now, and make sure to say the word in a standard way that you would say it on a day-to-day basis. People often make the mistake of sounding like a drill sergeant during training, so they get stuck talking like that forever! You don’t want to yell; if you speak in your normal voice while training your Corgi, that’s the sound they’ll get used to.
Say the word a couple of times while giving away a treat in combination with the command. This will start creating the connection between the two.
Let The Booty Hit The Floor
Now it’s time for your Corgi to sit, but they will need some help initially. Sure, your puppy knows how to sit; you’ve probably seen them do it a bunch of times. But sitting down on command is hardly a natural thing to do, so you’ll need to gently push your Dogs lower back down for them to figure out what it is that you want them to do.
Let’s get something straight though, just because they manage to figure out that it’s sitting that you’re looking for doesn’t mean that their brain has made any connection between the sound, the treat, or anything else for that matter. They gave sitting a try because it seemed like the right thing to do!
But once you reward this action, they will start thinking and analyzing what just happened. We generally suggest not just sounding like a robot and saying the word sit over and over again while handing your dog treats. It’s okay to get excited once that bottom hits the floor; not only that, it’s encouraged!
It will help your dog immensely to see that you’re visibly excited because of something it did. So after the first set, you can start repeating the whole ordeal over and over until you notice that your Corgi’s starting to understand the idea behind what you’re doing.
Keep Up The Lessons
Remember how we said that teaching you Corgi how to sit is the perfect first lesson? Well, the next part that we’re going to talk about will further explain what we meant.
It’s crucial not to stop with the lessons right after the first successful session. While your dog manages to understand what it needs to do once you say the command, the information is still not engraved in its memory. You can’t teach your puppy how to sit for an hour and expect it to know how to do it a week later without any exercise in between.
With that said, you don’t really need to give out the sit command every other minute. What you want to do is find the middle ground. See, your dog’s memory works much like yours in a way. Keeping up a routine will inevitably get you to remember something, but it doesn’t mean that you’ll remember it forever. If the repetition suddenly stops, the retained knowledge will start to fade. The logic here is simple, in with new memories, out with the old. Well, your dog needs to remember the command well to make sure it knows what to do every time you say the word sit.
The best way to make sure a command sticks is to come back to it every once in a while. In the beginning, with each new command, you want to keep the number of training sessions up. Do everything we mentioned a couple of times per day, every day. This will make sure that your puppy is constantly ready to learn. After this, make it every two days, and after a week or so of that, the number of times you need to make sure to go through the command/reward should be maybe once a week.
Now, this all isn’t to say that you can’t tell your dog to sit when the situation calls for it; that would defeat the purpose of the whole lesson! But when we’re talking about sessions, we mean the rewarding part. Heck, it’s encouraged to give your dog a command in between these sessions without the chance of it getting a reward. After all, that’s the final stage!
Take The Treats Away
The last part of this whole training session is to stop giving your puppy traits when he successfully obeys a command – we know, it just seems cruel. But there is a good reason for this. See, the point of this is for your dog to kind of forget about the treat and to just do what it was told.
The idea of you giving out food for a job well done will still be there, which is why you’ll be able to use the same system for any other command that you would like to teach your puppy. But as far as sitting goes, the job is done, so put those tasty snacks away!
Health And Sitting
There is a question that we found over and over again while reading up on this subject, and that is – why do corgis sit weird? And while it does look like a strange question, it actually makes perfect sense.
See, Corgis, and dogs in general, sit a certain way familiar to all of us. So when you see your Corgi sitting, for instance, with its legs stretched out like a human, you’re bound to wonder what’s happening.
Can Corgis sit pretty? Is your Corgi just kind of weird? Well, we’ll leave it to them to decide what’s weird and what a pretty way to sit. If a Corgi wants to sit in a funny way, it has the right to do so – don’t judge!
So how do corgis sit? Is the weird way correct for them? Maybe it has to do with their short legs? Well, sorry to burst your bubble, but no. Corgis sit just like any other breed. But if you do spot a strange sitting posture around the house, it could be something to worry about!
Sitting strangely could mean that your Corgi is not comfortable with its legs bent, meaning it could be in pain. These symptoms usually indicate that the dog is suffering from conditions like hip dysplasia and arthritis. These conditions are typically found in older dogs, and very few young puppies suffer from them.
Still, it is something worth checking out, especially if it seems that your Corgi is in pain.
Final Words
Well, there you have it. The guide on how to train a corgi to sit is finished and ready! And we hope that you’ll use it well. If you take the advice and go by the steps mentioned here, there’s no limit to what your puppy can learn. It’s much more fun for them than one might think.
The brighter your dog is, the happier it is, and it doesn’t hurt that you’re satisfied with the results as well. Corgis just plain love to make their parents happy, believe us.
So get you some treats and start teaching your puppy every trick in the book!
Learn More: Are Corgis Trainable? How Long To Train A Corgi?