How normal is this?

[lvoss]

You may want to start to condition her to a clicker or a marker word like "yes" so that she knows when she hears the click or marker work that a treat is coming. Then she need to see the treat to know that she will get paid for working.

[NicholasDenis]

I'm doing basic training with my B Lilo also. She only sits when the treat is waved in front of her and she can see it. If she doesn't see the treat she just sniffs around and looks at me as if saying "where's the treat, I know its here somewhere I can smell it" lol. But once she has it in sight, plop, down goes her bottom.

[sharronhurlbut]

This is normal..the more "special" the goodies she gets when she obeys will help the process.

[Kananga]

@JazzysMom:

EXTREMELY normal. Basenjis are NOT golden retrievers or labs, LOL.

She will get there, but it takes patience and determination…..and the realization that she may always only sit on command sometimes.

I would give commands with treat in sight for a long time, until she really has it down. She is still very young.

Yep. One thing I have done for a long time now, is that I have my B sit before he eats. I'll be holding his dish and tell him to sit. He always follows through. At first it took him some time to be consistent but now he always sits, sometimes before I even say anything.

The key is being patient with this breed. They learn quick but you have to work on the consistency.

[JazzysMom]

@Kananga:

Yep. One thing I have done for a long time now, is that I have my B sit before he eats. I'll be holding his dish and tell him to sit. He always follows through. At first it took him some time to be consistent but now he always sits, sometimes before I even say anything.

The key is being patient with this breed. They learn quick but you have to work on the consistency.

Yes, Keoki and Jazz must sit before they get their dinner, or any treats, and before they are let back into the house – we have a sliding glass door, and when they see us coming to let them in, they know to sit first. They sit before getting crated at night, etc.

They are reasonably good at coming/sitting when I use the clicker, though if something more interesting is happening elsewhere, they still appear deaf as doornails, LOL.

[wizard]

It took Gossy about a week with a clicker and no distractions and now she sits pretty well most of the time. But it required a nice treat and lots of practise and always consistency. I found that lots of practise (on any command) in a non-distracting environment is necessary before the command will work in a distracting environment. So just be patient.

The husband issue will work out but only if he is as consistent as you in delivering the command and the treat.

[Nemo]

The clicker is nice too because you can shape the sit so that it is more consistent. Once she gets the idea of sit, you then only reward the ones where she sits almost immediately or within the desired amount of time. The really long "I guess maybe I'll sit but take a minute to think about it" won't get a click/treat.

Also if they tend to obsess over the treats or treat bag and aren't paying attention, I put the treat bag on a nearby shelf so that they can focus more on me. After they get a click, I will then walk over and get a treat out of the bag. Sometimes they will obsess over the clicker (because it magically creates treats!), and then I just put it behind my back.

[JazzysMom]

@Nemo:

The clicker is nice too because you can shape the sit so that it is more consistent. Once she gets the idea of sit, you then only reward the ones where she sits almost immediately or within the desired amount of time. The really long "I guess maybe I'll sit but take a minute to think about it" won't get a click/treat.

Also if they tend to obsess over the treats or treat bag and aren't paying attention, I put the treat bag on a nearby shelf so that they can focus more on me. After they get a click, I will then walk over and get a treat out of the bag. Sometimes they will obsess over the clicker (because it magically creates treats!), and then I just put it behind my back.

Keoki has the more difficult time focusing – he's such a busy boy --
so he has to make eye contact with us before he gets his cookie. That forces him to take some attention away from the treat and put it back on us.

We achieved that by just holding the treat and waiting. He started out looking longer at the treat, but would eventually look at our eyes and immediately get praise and a treat. It took almost no time for him to catch on and Now he looks at us almost immediately.

[ComicDom1]

I do not use a clicker although its effective for many people. Since I walk my Basenji in the park daily Roo has been taught to sit and come after we are done walking and he has been exercised. We worked on this about 10 to 15 mins daily and I used Cherrio's for his rewards. To this day he still love cherrios. I also use hand signals. I can point and he will sit. I also make him sit when I put his leash on before we walk at the house, he has to sit before I will take off his leash. Miranda and I will make him sit when we are playing fetch before we throw his toy. So we used motivation besides treats to teach him.

I think its important to note that you will have to continually practice and reinforce training. I can also tell you our pup at least knows what the word treat means. If you say Treat his ears will perk up and he gets excited and really pays attention. We also have Roo jumping through a hoop. I use both a voice command and hand signal for this also.

Jason

[annyaa]

My goal with her is to have her evenutuall follow hand commands as our other dog does ( She was trainedwhen we got her). Its good to see that can be done with this breed. Thankyou for all the sugestions, I will try them out and see what works for her.