I have (another) bee in my bonnet (I get more as I get older).
Years ago, I was involved in the kind of dog training that was proud to use force, discipline and punishment in the name of Control.
Poor Pip – quick photo then it became a massage
Dogs and handlers walked in circles round village halls. There would be twenty or thirty dogs.
“Command your dog to Sit!”
Or,
“Put your dog into A Sit!”
To make sense, the two words ‘A Sit’ (or indeed ‘A Down’ or ‘A Stand’) are preceded with the word ‘Put’.
Aren’t we today in the world of force-free, coercion-free choice training?
“Put that child into A Sit!” Really? Grab his arm and pushing him down onto a chair?
‘Putting’ the dog into A Sit used to mean pushing him until he sat. Putting a dog into A Down could mean physically leaning him against your leg and then removing your leg so he fell into ‘A Down’.
Why do we still use the word ‘A’ before Sit, Down, Stand, Stay and so on?
Why use a noun (a thing), ‘A Sit’, when we want an action, a verb (doing word). To sit.
So keen are we to keep that ‘A’ word, we may put a verb in first. ‘Do A Sit’ (soundslike something that needs to be picked up afterwards).
Why not simply ‘Ask your dog to sit’?
Clients proudly say to me, “My puppy will do A Sit and A Down”
Isn’t it time we dropped the ‘A’.
Let it be ‘Ask your dog to Sit’ or ‘Cue your dog to Sit’. Or, simply capture the dog sitting, put on cue and reward.
Paws for Thought 