Our (4 year old) dog is very attached to people, both us and any random person that comes in the house, so he’s always underfoot and often in the way (American Bully). We’ve had him for about a year, and in the ~3 weeks we’ve been working on “sit on place” so we can get him out of the way when necessary.
He definitely gets it but really seems to think of it as punishment. We get smiles/sneezes, belly, leaning against us. The place is in the living room where he sits all the time, and one of us is basically always in his line of sight when he’s there. He gets lot of praise and attention when we release him. We’ve put treats on the place to try and encourage him to go there on his own, but he picks them up and takes them somewhere else.
We do NOT use “place” as punishment. We practice regularly when everyone is already chilled out. If we’re using it to keep him out of the way (like the other day when I needed to put together a piece of furniture without “help”), we put him on place before we start.
If we give him treats or too much praise for getting on place, he interprets that as “task completed” and gets off place, and then we’re back at the top of my post.
Is this just a time thing, or is there something we can do to make this better for him? He picked it up quickly and it’s been invaluable for us but I hate that it seems to be stressing him.
submitted by /u/BeneficialPast
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