Are you happy for your dog to simply do its own thing in your home or do you use hand signals to train your dog? Or do you train your dog with a combination of verbal and hand signal cues?
I have trained many dogs over the years, which usually starts at the age of eight weeks when I bring my new puppy home to live in our household as a valued new member.
Would You Like to Continue Your Dog’s Education?
For My Series on Further Dog Training Use This Link
I have also brought older dogs to my home, and I help them assimilate and be ready to live in a new home or perhaps stay with our household, depending on the initial reason why I have this new dog to look after.
Do I have this dog for a time to help train this pet ready for a new home or have I brought this dog home to assimilate into the environment here with us?
Whichever way, all my dogs are trained to be ready to enjoy whatever I ask them to do.
I teach my dogs with calmness and consistency. Dogs need to know and understand that the guidelines that are part of our daily living are for everyone’s benefit, including my dogs.
They happily understand this and are keen to try the teaching games that I introduce to them.
I personally find that when you are encouraging your dog to understand what you are teaching them, that you are doing this with a treat in your hand, or maybe even a toy, therefore, your hand is already part of your training tool.
This answers the question in my case “Do you use hand signals to train your dog?” My answer is obviously yes, this is the first part whereby I encourage my new puppy or dog to respond, for example, if it is their feed time, I usually leave their dinner on the bench, take out some food from their meal and with my hand show my new addition how to sit easily by following my hand.
My new dogs will happily oblige as they are hungry and keen to get something tasty into their mouth. We are the same, aren’t we, if we are hungry, we are more than keen to sit down at the table and start our meal. Even though this does not always happen, it is lovely to start a meal with thanksgiving.
I like to help my dogs learn new skills just before their meals. At this time I usually just work on the sit, drop/down or stand commands or cues as I prefer to call them, all by using my hand holding a yummy treat which is released immediately when my dog attempts this new skill.
Once my dog gets the hang of this new skill, I can very easily not hold a treat in my hand, use my hand to show them the skill as if I did have a treat in my hand, and yes, my dog responds to this particular hand movement that they have been following and learning previously. Then I can deliver the treat as a reward, or even reward my dog with a jackpot of a few treats for being so clever.
I can then add the verbal cue to this hand movement and my dog will learn that this request can be either by hand only, voice only, or a combination of voice and hand cue.
We need to be aware that sometimes, if we are in a crowded space, the hand movement will be the one your dog responds to as it may be too noisy for them to hear your voice, or your hands may be being used to hold an item, therefore your dog will need to respond to your voice cue.
You will know at the time, which is the most beneficial way to engage your dog, therefore it should be easy for you to answer the question “Do you use hand signals to train your dog?” I am sure your initial answer would be, “Yes, I start out that way!”
Would You Like to Continue Your Dog’s Education?
For My Series on Further Dog Training Use This Link
Until next time…
With Love, Success and Inspiration,
Robin Oliver
www.robinoliveronline.com/blog
