Sit Happens Dog Training

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Sit Happens Dog Training Edinburgh based dog trainer

20/11/2025

Does Experience Matter? HELL YES!!

Sure, there are endless books, YouTube tutorials, and social media reels on dog training. You can even ask AI to condense it all for you. But here’s the question: how do you know what will actually work for YOUR dog?

Not every training method works for every situation. How do you know if it’s just taking time—or if it will NEVER work?

That’s where experience comes in. A good trainer can quickly see:
🐾 When a method isn’t working
🐾 Why it isn’t working
🐾 How to fix it

Over the years, I’ve worked with dogs facing all sorts of challenges—from pulling on the lead to excessive barking. Many owners tell me, “I’ve tried XYZ from social media, advice from a friend, or something that worked for my last dog… but it’s not working.” Often, the dog has been practicing the unwanted behavior for years, making it harder to change.

The best time to get help is early. Two sessions now are far more cost-effective than six+ sessions two years later—and living with a problem in the meantime.

Here’s a fun example: I was teaching Adeleke a simple “stand” but it wasnt working. I started with luring, which works for most puppies. But when I removed my hand, the behavior fell apart. My experience told me this method wouldn’t work for her, she was so focused on touching my hand that she didnt notice what her body was doing. I had to think how else I could train it.

So I switched to a target-based approach, adding value to keeping her front paws on the target while luring the stand. I gradually moved further away from her so she couldn’t get to me and maintain target criteria, and then she started to understand. Now I’m fading the target by moving to a mat, and soon I’ll remove it completely.
It took creativity and experience to adapt, but it was much faster than sticking with a method that would never work.

Experience matters. It saves time, frustration, and gets results.
👉 Ready to make training easier? Book a session today!

TESTING BOUNDARIES Some people think this is regression but it’s actually progression. I’ve trained hundreds of dogs and...
17/11/2025

TESTING BOUNDARIES

Some people think this is regression but it’s actually progression.

I’ve trained hundreds of dogs and they learn in different ways. Some repeat something enough times and they’ll always do it that way, but for others they may do something the ‘right’ way many times and then try another way to see if it works. If it doesn’t get rewarded they may try it again but they will go back to the way that does get reinforced.

For example, when Drico was learning how to weave he would do it perfectly several times and then decide to go in the wrong way or in at pole 2 to see if it would get rewarded. When it didn’t, he’d try it again and then go back to doing it correctly. Ever so often he’d do it the wrong way again to check. This is really useful in sport because I have confidence that he know the rules.

Adeleke is now also testing the rules but the implications of getting house rules wrong are more serious than just turning left after I say right. Getting house rules wrong can be annoying but can also be dangerous, eg I don’t want her going up the stairs because we have open wooden stairs and they are dangerous if she runs down them at speed. So she’s decided to see what happens if she goes upstairs. I pick her up and take her down. It doesn’t get reinforced but I also don’t want it getting practised, because the more times it happens the more likely it is that it could accidentally get reinforced (she could find a sock).

Similarly, she’s been barking more often in her crate recently, trying to get attention. Of course I will NOT give her attention if she’s barking but I also don’t want it getting practised too much. Therefore I’ll go back to the crate games I did with her when I 1st brought her home and try to get her to settle before walking away.

Going back to an earlier stage of training isn’t a set back, it’s an opportunity to reinforce the basics and help them figure out the ‘right’ way to do things.… puppies grow and change regularly so our training needs to adapt. Sometimes we need to get it wrong to learn the right way… just make sure that you’re keeping them safe 🧡

09/11/2025

Train regularly

I’m a big fan of exercise. I’ve exercised most days since I was a teenager but I don’t wake up super motivated every day. The days when motivation is low are not the days to pick up heavy weights and try to build muscle, those are the days I use light or no weights and rep it out. I work on form, train my body to go through the motions so it has practice for the days when I pick up the big weights. This also helps me form habits.

Training your dog is similar, somedays they are less motivated for whatever reason. Somedays they perform worse than the day before. These are not the days to do increase the difficulty. These are the days to do something easy, that they know well, and rep it out.

This can be extremely beneficial because:
* it can give your dog more practice doing a behaviour and build up the history of reinforcement with that behaviour
* teach your dog to keep working with you even when motivation is low
* Form habits for both you and your dog to train regularly

You don’t need to do a lot - even few minutes a few times a day can make a big difference (you can do a lot of reps on a few minutes). I use my dog’s meals to rehearse things they know well. This ensures that I’m doing at least a little bit of training a few times a day.

Easy exercises that don’t require motivation:

🐾 Name game: give the dog a treat after you say their name. This is not contingent on any behaviour. It builds up a positive association to their name and automatic reflexes.
If the dog looks at me or move towards me, then I always say ‘yes’ to mark the behaviour but if they don’t I still give the treat.

🐾 Practise recall and ‘adding money to the bank’ when it comes to you ‘come’ cue.
I toss a treat, as they finish eating it I say ‘come’ mark as they turn to me and toss another treat as a reward

There are lots of other things you can do on days like these:
🐾 Drop (part 1 - saying drop as you drop food)
🐾 practise something they know well like a sit or a down with food present.
🐾 luring behaviours without cues.

Keep training…. Consistency pays off 🧡

Get instant recall!
02/11/2025

Get instant recall!

02/11/2025

RECALL

I hear a lot of people say that recall goes out the window when their pup becomes a teenager. However I would argue that they haven’t really trained it in the 1st place.

Pre pubescent puppies have a natural desire to stay close to their parents (dogs or humans). So many people go to the park, call their pup between them a few times and when they call them they come back, and they THINK they’ve trained recall. The reality is that your pup needs to learn to disengage from a distraction.

I spend about 70-80% of my walks with Adi working on recall and I also do some at home.

🐾 I practise several off lead from no distractions like this video, so she learns that coming back to me is a win win - she gets a treat and goes back to what she was doing

🐾 I use a long line to practise recalls from distractions (birds mostly - she loves birds🦅). I try calling her on a loose line so that she responds to the cue not the line, but if she ignores me the line will prevent her getting access to that distraction and getting reinforced for ignoring me.

🐾 I do lots a fun recall games so she loves hearing the word ‘come’.

If she doesn’t respond instantly then I take note that that’s something I need to work on. I always have a long line with me and will continue that until she’s well over a year.

Please contact me if you want some help training recall. Using a long line takes a bit of practise.
🧡

22/10/2025

DROP!
“Spit out that thing”

Puppies explore with their mouths and EVERYTHING goes in there. In the 1st few weeks, Adi managed to find every stone on our tarmac driveway. Now that it’s autumn 🍂 she’s picking up all the acorns. She could choke on them, so her Drop cue is very important and gets practised regularly.

I teach in 3 stages but I continue to practise stages 1 & 2 even when she can do stage 3 to keep the response sharp as it is a safety cue.

Stage 1: I say drop and drop a treat.
She doesn’t need to have anything… she is just learning that when she hears Drop there’ll be food on the floor. The more I do to this, the better the association. I cannot do it too much.

Stage 2: when she has something (like a toy or a sock) I say drop and drop a treat. When she spits it out to take the treat I say ‘yes’ and drop another treat. I DON’T pick up the item, I let her back to it, this reduces conflict of giving the thing up if she knows she can have it again. Then if she goes back to it, I can practise her drop again. If she doesn’t go back to it, I might move the object but I’m not bothered… I get lots of opportunities to practise this.

Stage 3: when she picks something up, I say drop and wait for her to spit it out before I mark ‘yes’ and drop another treat. This way she’s learning that the reward comes as a consequence and will mean that she will be able to drop in the future if I don’t have treats in my hands.

For now, I’m happy that’s she’s not swallowing dangerous items so I’m happy to drop treats to create the behaviour.

This is a very easy exercise that I practise daily 🧡

28/09/2025

SHAPING - My favourite way to train

This is a long post and definately not a how to guide but more a video to show a different way to train than luring or capturing. There are lots of rules as it is so easy to do wrong and can create so much frustration, but if done well, it builds resilience to frustration and teaches the dog to keep trying.

Shaping marks and rewards incremental steps towards a target behaviour. For example, if I want her to go around the cone, I would think of the steps she would need to take like mark and reward her looking at the cone several times until she is confident that will earn her a reward. Then I stop rewarding it in the hope that she will escalate her behavior and move towards the cone. If she does, I will mark a reward that until she's confident that will earn her a reward. Then I stop rewarding it in the hope that she will escalate her behavior, and so on.

The next step may be moving past the cone and eventually around the cone. When it looks the way I want, I can add a cue.

If she does other things, eg move away from cone, lie down, chew, that's fine, I just wont reward, but if she keeps trying she gets rewarded.

At this age, I'm not bothered with adding the cues. I'm not shaping to teach her new things, I using this principle to teach her to think, to think about what she's doing with her body and keep trying even when she doesn't get it right, because there will be times when training or competing that she won't get it right (that's what happens in sport) and I don't want her to give up, I want her to keep trying.

After this I shaped:

✋🏻 a nose-palm touch
🐾 front paw on a weight plate
👄 picking up a toy with her mouth (I will post this video too)
🐾 Now I'm teaching her to tarhet a foam block with her back paws

What should I teach next?

16/09/2025

Impulse control:

This is a pretty long (and fairly boring 🥱 😂) video showing one of the MANY impulse control exercises that I’m doing with Adeleke. Puppies need to learn impulse control in lots of different ways because there are lots of different impulsive things they want to do… run to you, jump on you, bite, chew, eat, chase etc. but I want her to think about if doing that thing will be rewarded or not.

Impulse control games are intentionally cueless, I don’t want to TELL her what to do, I want her to make good choices.

Here I am paying her in her for being in her bed. I will teach her a more formal ‘Bed’ where I will add cues and rules and my training is more structured, but for this impulse control exercise I don’t want to tell her to go to her bed, I want her to choose to be there.

To start I make the decision easy. I close doors so she can’t leave the kitchen, there’s nothing on the floor to chew, no toys. She has a bed and a water bowl and she can’t get reach the counters.

- In a previous session rewarded her in quick succession and then spaced out the treats, a second at a time.

- then I stepped away and returned to the bed and rewarded, and gradually took more steps.

Here’s where it’s different to teaching a formal bed cue: I don’t add the cue, I just started doing things around the kitchen. She can get up if she likes but if she lies in that bed she gets rewarded. Sometimes she gets up and mouches about but when nothing good happens, she returns to her bed.

This way I can have my coffee, make my juice, make dinner and she’s getting mental stimulation and also learning it’s good to be in her bed 🧡

12/09/2025

Learning to learn - teaching concepts:

At 14 weeks she doesn’t have the focus or stamina to learn things to a high level. I still need to manage all situations but I can start introducing training concepts.

I’m training not to teach her specific things, but get her used to learning and enjoying it.

I’m introducing luring… teaching her follow food and move her body. I can also add some cues. It’ll be a while before the food will be taken out of the picture, but for now I just want to see her follow ing food and performing reps and enjoying it.

I am also doing a lot of impulse control exercises and shaping. Separate posts on these to follow
🧡

05/09/2025

Interactive Play!

Interactive play is where the dog engages with the handler vs independent play where they play by themselves. Both have their uses (I want both) but the former is more useful for training.

I really want to establish a great interactive play with Adi. I made some mistakes with Drico - he is quite sensitive and I was too intense, and I’ve learned the importance of certain elements in play.

Why do I want to play?
Play is a great way of training a dog through arousal while keeping a higher level of excitement and still keep the dog working with us.
For pet dog owners that can be useful to help them teach their dogs how to behave when they are very excited.
For me (a sports dog handler) it teaches my dog how to work and preform with high energy.

• I use a chaser tuggy with an end that is easy for her to grab and hold.

• I hold the handle in my fingertips to handicap myself because I want to a apply competition but I want her to be able to win

• I move with smooth predictable movements and keep her spine parallel to the ground (I don’t jerk her head up)

• I introduce some contact with my hands and if she likes it I can give her a pat or a gentle push… this adds intensity to the play.

• Sometimes she wins, sometimes I win and I activate again, sometimes I win and I throw it. Mixing it up makes it more fun.

IMPORTANT THINGS I LOOK FOR:

1. She’s bringing the toy back to me!
Sometimes she wins it and lies on the floor ripping it, that’s fine, she likes that, but the vast majority of the time she’s bringing it back. This tells me that she finds playing with me more reinforcing.

2. She’s is staying at same energy level or increasing. This means that she is finding the play exhilarating and that I’m doing it right.

I keep the sessions short because it’s tiring for her and I want to keep the quality high.

I will do some training with food or give her a chew afterwards to help her calm.

Developing a routine:❗️It is important to develop a routine to set her expectations and reduce frustration, and help me ...
01/09/2025

Developing a routine:

❗️It is important to develop a routine to set her expectations and reduce frustration, and help me plan my days.
‼️Her brain 🧠 is still developing and I want the neural pathways that suit me to be formed, ie I want her to practice the behaviour I want.

😴 Puppies need lots of sleep (over 20 hrs per day). They can easily become over tired and cranky and they actually become harder to settle, so I keep her wake time short and productive - 30 min to 1 hr depending on the time of day and encourage her to sleep for 2 ish hour bursts

🕕 If she wakes before 7 am I take her to loo 🚽 but I don’t play with her. I encourage her back to sleep, I may sit with her on the sofa. Her tiny bladder may wake her at this stage but I want her circadian rhythm to not wake her before 7 as she gets older

🕖 I take her to loo 🚽
- I use her breakfast to for some training
- We have a play
- she may chew on her antler for a bit while I do stuff around the house

🕗 I take her to loo 🚽
I put her in her crate and I want her to sleep for 2ish hours. If she cries I will take her out for 🚽 but put her back immediately. She may cry for a bit afterwards for attention but will settle herself quickly now.

🕚 I take her to loo 🚽
- I use her next meal to for some training
- We have a play
- She will have a new experience or a short walk
- then she goes back in her crate for sleep

🕑 I take her to loo 🚽
- We have a play or she may get a bigger new experience
- then she goes back in her crate for sleep

🕓 I take her to loo 🚽
- I use her next meal to for some training
- We have a play
- then she goes back in her crate for sleep

🕕 I take her to loo 🚽
- We have a short play - 15 min
- then she goes back in her crate for sleep so I can get on with making our dinner

🕗 I take her to loo 🚽
- I use her next meal to for some training
- We have a play
- then I will snuggle her on the sofa watching TV 📺 and help her relax

🕘 I take her to loo 🚽
- then she goes back in her crate for bedtime 🛏️

Sometimes I’ll do the training after play because it helps calm her, but it depends on the training that I’m doing

💕

30/08/2025

What am I training:

CONSENT

I tried to hold her paws to clip her nails and she tried to bite me. She really didn’t like it! So I have no choice but to teach her to participate in it. I NEVER thought I’d be teaching this to a 12 week old puppy (for context, Drico was 3 when I did this with him) but needs must.

• 1st I stopped her taking the food from the bowl so that I could put the bowl of food in front of her for focus and quick rewards
• then I rewarded her for lying still as i touched her nails
• then I reward holding her paws and touching the clippers off her nails
• I do that lots and I occasionally clip one

Sometimes it’s too much, she gets frustrated and needs a break… that’s fine. She lies back down when she’s ready to continue.

This is an amazing exercise because it teaches her:
• that she’s in control and therefore she will accept more if she know she can stop it
• how to cope with frustration and to work through it

Best of all I get her nails clipped with no fuss 😁

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Dog Training Services

Fun, positive, science based trainer. Available for home or park training sessions. Manageable training plans to modify undesired behaviours using games and easy techniques. Fun sessions to build communication and bond with your furry family member.