This is a bit of a basic training question but how do you get your dog to sit and hold, before you release them. My pup is 6 months old and doing well very at training classes with most things but she will never hold a command, such as sit, down, stand. She always gets out of the sit etc before I have released her, and I am just not sure how to go about this. Any suggestions please.

Hi - I'm not a pup person my dog is nearing 7 yr old, but when I got him 3 yr ago he was unruly to say the least.  I had him at training and home training and for me it was just a case of repeat, repeat, repeat.  And when he got it right I gave a small food treat.  When he got out of a command like sit, I just put him straight back in it and start again.  Eventually, and I mean 3 yrs later!, he will listen to the commands and he understands that unless he sits and stays I won't put his lead on and walk him.  He moans his head off but he will do the commands.

Your dog is so young he will learn so much more easily as he has no bad habits to break.  Just keep doing what you're doing.  This is only my own experience and I'm sure puppy people will come along with more advice.

CG

I had the same problem with my pup - so I taught the stay command and then for example when I put them in the sit position i would follow it with stay before he had a chance to move. It took a while for him to get the hang of it but now I don't need to follow each command with "stay" he automatically stays in posiiton until I release him

you might be asking her to do it for too long at the moment, try to release her within a period, that you know he can manage, then reward, even if it is only 10 seconds, and build it up from there, try standing next to her but not making eye contact so you can see if she starts to move and perhaps reinforce the command, you will get there in the end,

What I'd suggest is - put a pot of treats on a table and show the dog that they're there.

Sit the dog right next to the table.

While the dog stays sitting, praise and reach for a treat - the first time you will want to do it quite quickly because you want it to be a success.  Keep feeding the dog treats for as long as he will stay in that position, by the table, looking at the treat pot.  As soon as he moves, say "too bad" or "whoopsie" and fold your arms and wait several moments.

Then try again.  As soon as he realises that he only gets treats while he stays in the sit position and nothing happens when he's out of it, he will keep sitting.

Then you can sit him slightly further away from the table, so you have to walk to the table to get the treat and return to him.  Same principles apply, only now he is getting used to holding himself there, away from the treat pot.

Great advice thanks, we will start trying those methods out and let you know if we have any luck.

Yep... from the begining we taught stay. So sit-stay, down-stay...etc to get them to hold their possition. I started from the first week home with us as small pups. Would have them sit say stay with my hand flat out towards them and take a step back keeping my hand in the same place...then then straight back and ott  praise. Then build up to step back and count adding a second or two each time to get a longer stay.Then retract my hand...and say 'stay'... and so on just building up sucsess on sucsess. You can do it on a lead to hold the dog in place while you step away, walk round the dog, step over the dog and in the end just holdthat for the 10 or 20 mins or whatever in sight or out of sight... just progress slowly and bulid on your sucsess. They pick this up so quickly... I think...all mine did anyway. You must believe they will do as you are saying too... with any training a big secret is to believe in them becaue they know it if you don't and pick up on the uncertainty and it all goes shockingly  pear shaped. Have fun!

easy praise much more & feed whilst in position. dont feed after youve released!

plus keep reminding the dog what its doing!
eg. "sit.....oh what a good sit,brilliant sit, feed what a good sitfeedwow thats a good sit that you can do"