How to teach a Corgi to do a tuck sit?

Has anybody here trained Corgis for akc obedience or rally? I'm trying to teach Madison to do a tuck sit but it's really, really, really hard to get her to understand the concept.

I can easily lure her into a sit but it usually ends up as a rock back sit.

Sometimes it seems like she has tuck sat, and I'll reward her, but then she rocks back and walks her front feet back to meet her hind feet. So, basically all I've done is rewarded an incorrect sit. Since these sits keep getting rewarded it's no wonder that she keeps doing them.

I'm trying to only reward tuck sits but it's hard when only 1% of sits that seem like a tuck sit at first actually turn out to be one.

How can I get her to keep her front feet in place and get her to bring her hind feet up to meet the front ones rather than vica versa? In other words, how do I consistently get tuck sits?

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Permalink Reply by Anna Morelli on February 21, 2015 at 11:52pm

I've worked with a lot of dogs in obedience. Dogs of all breeds have different styles of getting into a sit position, some plant the front and bring the rear up to the front, some plant the rear and rock back as you describe. Some sit square, some on one or the other hip. These natural positions are to be allowed. I do encourage a square sit, but some dogs do not have the conformation for it.

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Permalink Reply by Marcie on February 22, 2015 at 9:23am

I've done rally with Becca. She has her novice title. She's never lost points for a sit. As long as they are in heel position a sit is a sit. Traditional obedience is slightly tougher. I agree with Anna that some dogs are just not built to sit square or do a tuck sit.

If you are interested in competing, find a class with a positive trainer. You may have to start with a pet obedience class in order to work your way up through to competition classes. As we've progressed through the levels and classes I try to observe a trainer before signing up for their classes. My most successful classes have been with trainers who also have a herding breed.

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Permalink Reply by Jane Christensen on February 22, 2015 at 2:39pm

I agree with Marcia. Sage has done several obedience classes and also has her CGC and is a Therapy Inc. dog. My main concern is that she sits when I ask her to and then for her emergency recall that she runs immediately to me and sits with her butt within 6" of my legs so she can be grabbed if need be.

A positive trainer is the most important. We are lucky enough to have an AKC Club within an hour of us and that is where she has done all her training. Sage could easily do Obedience Rally but we never have.

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Permalink Reply by susan on February 23, 2015 at 3:59pm

Jeli has a sloppy sit too. We've gotten our Rally novice title and it didn't seem to matter. What did matter is giving the down command and she did a full out sploot. I think we got points taken off for that but I didn't care... It was too cute and IS how she lays normally. Lol. A corgis gotta corg! The judge laughed. :)

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Permalink Reply by Starry on March 6, 2015 at 11:39pm

Update: I have her doing tuck sits now. I talked to a competition trainer and they showed me something little I needed to change about how I asked for the sit. It still took a lot of practice to get a tuck consistently (her bad habits were ingrained!), but now I can get a tuck sit almost every time. Whoo!