Best Dog Training in Pittsburgh

We customize each package to your situation. Because of your unique situation, we offer a free consultation as an opportunity to meet with your family and your dog to gain insight into your unique circumstances. Then we develop a training plan, from which we will be able to give you an accurate idea of the cost to accomplish your goals, whether it’s basic obedience, behavior modification, or something else. There is no cost or obligation associated with the free consultation.

Sit Means Sit uses various training methods and training aids to achieve the goals of our dog owners and their pets. We will teach you how to use different aids and what you need to do with your body language, movement and energy as well to help with obedience.

The Sit Means Sit mission:

Revolutionizing the quality of life with happy, obedient, and confident dogs.

We customize our sessions to meet with our customer’s needs as well as what will result in the best possible experience for both dog and owner. As you view our portfolio of dog training videos, we hope that you will pay close attention to the attitude of all the dogs trained by Sit Means Sit. We pride ourselves on teaching a dog to maintain a happy and relaxed attitude, whether they are learning to walk on leash, not jump on guests, are shy or even reactive.

Sit Means Sit specializes in a diversified approach to dog training. We use an attention-based system developed by Founder and CEO, Fred Hassen. This approach utilizes a variety of training tools to enable our trainers to gain the dog’s attention, even in distracting situations. One of the things that we use often in our program is our customized Sit Means Sit Collar (remote electronic dog training collar).

Professional Dog Trainer With Experience

At Sit Means Sit, collars are used as a tool to provide a remote controlled cue. The cue is designed to neither cause pain nor to disrupt the dog’s emotional state, but rather to function as an adjustable “tap”. Sit Means Sit trainers use the approach to treat the “tap” from the collar as a cue for the dog to pay attention. This is no different than tapping a person on the shoulder to gain their attention. The goal of tapping them on the shoulder is not to hurt them or cause emotional distress, but rather to let them know that you want to communicate something to them.

The “tap” delivered from the Sit Means Sit Collar is highly adjustable that can be set to levels that are often imperceptible to people. Obviously this adjustability is necessary because some dogs are sensitive, while others are quite tough. There is no way to determine what levels your dog will respond to until you begin to train them with a collar. Another reason why the collars are so adjustable is because distractions from the environment are never consistent. Relate this to using with a treat. How many times will that treat work perfectly indoors, but fails to maintain your dog’s attention when someone knocks on the door, a dog walks by outside or you’re at the park? Sit Means Sit has found that dogs can be taught to pay attention around extreme distractions very effectively.

Training with a remote collar is really no different than training your dog with a leash or treats. Rarely does anyone ask us “When do I stop using food rewards?” Reinforcement in any form is a required and necessary part of your dog’s life. Maintaining your rules and boundaries does not have an end date.

Proper and thorough training will result in your dog being more reliable even without equipment or ‘aids’ as we call them. Teaching your dog to be reliable without a Sit Means Sit collar is a matter of transferring attention through conditioning. There are three broad phases of training that you will encounter as you train your dog. Keeping expectations and reinforcing your rules consistently over a long enough period of time will get your dog as reliable as they can be. The phases of training are:

Phase 1: The Teaching/Control Phase ~ 6-12+ weeks

During phase one, the goal is to teach your dog the rules, boundaries and desired behaviors you want. You must be consistent in your expectations and practice daily. It also the time to teach the dog to pay attention and perform these commands around distractions. This phase lasts between 6-12 weeks on average. Inconsistency here, or lack of practice will make this stage much longer.

Phase 2: The Reinforcement Phase ~ 6-12+ weeks

During phase two, the goal is to begin phasing out your remote collar. In phase one, we use the training collar regularly to regain attention and maintain our rules. In phase two we begin to reduce our dependence on the collar and introduce consistency via variable reinforcement. This phase will last between 6 – 12 weeks on average. It’s also not uncommon as dogs mature and age to have to revert back into phase one again for several weeks, depending on how consistently you require attention from your dog. Professional athletes don’t stop training after 3 months, and we don’t recommend that you stop either. Continually aim to get the best from your dog – just like athletes.

Phase 3: The Maintenance Phase ~ Ongoing

The third and final phase is the maintenance phase. During this phase, you will likely be using your dog training collar very little (but still as needed). The catch however is that they are still capable of distraction (they are not robots). A smart trainer recognizes this and is ready to maintain their rules, commands, and boundaries at any time. For some people that means a collar may be used if the dog is off leash, or at a park, for safety and reliability; but not because the dog requires the training aid.