If you're going to ask your dog to do anything, be it sit, lay down, come, stop eating the leaves off the houseplants; whatever, be ready to ENFORCE IT if the dog chooses to disobey you. Most people, for one reason or another, don't consistently enforce commands, which makes the dog think that commands are thus negotiable. Example:

you: "sit, remus."

remus: "she's bluffing. i don't HAVE to sit, she always says "sit" four or five times and even after that, there's a good chance she'll eventually give up and walk away to go curl her hair or something. therefore, i will pretend i can't hear her, even though my hearing is like 200% better than any human's, and i will just stare at this wall until this game is over."

So when you really need the dog to sit; say, for instance, when you have your terrified-of-dogs friend over and she's all dolled up in her new suede jumpsuit she got on ebay for $6, guess what? Your dog's not gonna sit; why should he? YOU've taught him to disobey you in every other situation, so why would this one be of such consequence?

And you're gonna be all embarrassed and you might have a slice of hatred for your Remus for a second but it was really your fault and you don't even realize it. And then your suede jumpsuit friend won't return your phone calls and when she does, she makes all these lame excuses why she can't come over, like she has to babysit her neighbor's vietnamese pot-bellied pig or she's got diarrhea or whatever. And you just became what 99% of dog owners are: ENSLAVED TO THE DOG. Now you don't have anybody over the house and when you absolutely have to have visitors, you shackle Remus outside to the oak tree in the dirt or you lock him in his crate that he's still using even though he's 9 years old.

Just get yourselves together and...

make the dog sit when you ask him to, even when you're hearing the opening song of Desperate Housewives or The Biggest Loser (you know you watch that show, b.t.w.). And if you can't follow through, just don't even ask him to do anything. Let him go off and sit on his couch and lick his butt until the sides of his mouth start foaming. And then you can watch your show with a clean conscience. Cheers.

this is my own dog licking his butt raw. he does it every night, around 10:30.

P.S.- here's one way to enforce sit-stay...

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