Teaching a dog to sit the right way

[FBMH]

Hey everyone, i got about a 2yr old retriever and am having troubles getting it to sit facing foward(the way i face). Usually he will sit in front of me and face me. That will be a problem when duck hunting and marking where ducks fall. Anyone help will be appreciated.

[nofishfisherman]

If I tell my dog to sit he'll almost always sit facing me. If I want him to sit beside me I give him a signal with my hand that brings him to me and turns him around so he's facing the same direction that I am facing, I then give him the sit command and he'll sit. That way he's sitting and looking out with me.

The other way that I have been working on is to call the dog to the heal position (on my left). That way I can tell him to heal and he will come to my left side and face the same direction that I am facing. I can then either give him the command to sit or I can begin walking with him healing on my left side. He is also being taught that when I stop walking he is to stop and sit down on my left and wait for further instruction.

[bottomdweller]

Thats what I do. Tell the dog to come and he sits in front of me, I then tell her to heal and she spins into the heal position.

[pureinsanity]

Heel, always make your dog heel and then you can mark with your hand

[Shack]

Depending on how trainable friendly your dog is, I would think working with him on a lead/leash while using the sit command (if he was never taught to heel. You could try to work in heel though) would be the best tool. Give this a week or so and then start phasing out the lead. Also physically correcting his position is the best way to let him know exactly what you want, with praise as a reward. Just start working with the dog every day and sooner than you think, even at that age, they will come around. Of course this all depends on if his goal in life was taught to please his master. If not you will have a tough road with teaching him anything new, but if he was taught anything he knows how to learn.

[Brain_Melt]

i also so bring my dogs to heal then tell them to sit. I will also tell them to heal and then give them the one beep on the whistle to get them to sit facing the same direction.