# How to Teach a Tuck Sit?



## RedonRed (Jan 26, 2020)

Reggie currently rocks back to sit, so when we work on sitting in a heel position, he ends up about a foot behind me. I’m hoping to get started in rally later this year, is a tuck sit preferred for that? And is there a good way to teach it?


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## lily cd re (Jul 23, 2012)

For sure getting a tuck sit that keeps proper heel position is an important skill for rally. I would suggest shortening your leash so that Reggie can't lag behind and make sure you learn footwork to cue your halt. So you are going to do normal step normal step normal step short step on left foot to show you are braking and then bring your right foot even. Say sit as you are bringing your right foot up to meet your left. Make sure you mark good sits and redo the entire sequence when he doesn't do it right.


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## Click-N-Treat (Nov 9, 2015)




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## RedonRed (Jan 26, 2020)

lily cd re said:


> For sure getting a tuck sit that keeps proper heel position is an important skill for rally. I would suggest shortening your leash so that Reggie can't lag behind and make sure you learn footwork to cue your halt. So you are going to do normal step normal step normal step short step on left foot to show you are braking and then bring your right foot even. Say sit as you are bringing your right foot up to meet your left. Make sure you mark good sits and redo the entire sequence when he doesn't do it right.


Thank you! I didn’t even think that my footwork might be affecting his sit.


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## RedonRed (Jan 26, 2020)

Click-N-Treat said:


>


That’s a great video, thank you! Reggie was able to do a couple good tuck sits using that technique. Do you use a separate cue for a tuck sit? “Sit” is already solidly associated with a rock back sit, and I think our hard target cue (“touch”) might be a bit too close to “tuck.”


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## Click-N-Treat (Nov 9, 2015)

You're not alone in having to start over with sit. I'm retraining sit because I neglected to train that sit means sit and make eye contact. My new cue is "PARK." Feel free to use it. Park means tuck your butt in, and turn your eyes toward mine, please.


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## Phaz23 (May 31, 2020)

I trained a tuck sit by shaping the movement using the stairs in my house. I would put a treat in front of Tekno or ask him to do a nose touch to my hand, and put it just at the tip of his reach. Every time his back legs crept forward to his front legs even just a little, I would click and treat. When he was reliably doing a tuck, we moved to a platform that's only big enough for him to crawl up and tuck his bum onto. He has a custom one now but here's when we used a yoga block for practice: 



I did these drill daily for a while until it became habit and now most of his sits are tucked.

I learned the stair method from my FDSA TEAM class. My teacher sent me this article as a support resource---




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Training the Tucked Sit | Hannah Branigan – Wonderpups Training







hannahbranigan.dog


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## RedonRed (Jan 26, 2020)

Click-N-Treat said:


> You're not alone in having to start over with sit. I'm retraining sit because I neglected to train that sit means sit and make eye contact. My new cue is "PARK." Feel free to use it. Park means tuck your butt in, and turn your eyes toward mine, please.


Thank you, “park” should work well! I especially like the idea of building in the eye contact. That might be our next project!


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## RedonRed (Jan 26, 2020)

Phaz23 said:


> I trained a tuck sit by shaping the movement using the stairs in my house. I would put a treat in front of Tekno or ask him to do a nose touch to my hand, and put it just at the tip of his reach. Every time his back legs crept forward to his front legs even just a little, I would click and treat. When he was reliably doing a tuck, we moved to a platform that's only big enough for him to crawl up and tuck his bum onto. He has a custom one now but here's when we used a yoga block for practice:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Thank you for the great article! I initially tried to teach him a tuck sit using a small platform, but it never quite worked. I think now that he’s beginning to understand the motion it might be perfect for transitioning from having him sit in front of me to sitting in a heel position.


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