![]() I can quickly issue a hand signal and tell my dog to lay down or stay in one quick movement without skipping a beat!Īnd, dog training hand signals are crucial if you ever take your dog off leash and he is an extended distance away! At such an expanse he might not be able to hear a verbal command so a hand signal can be imperative! Dogs who are deaf really rely on deaf dog hand signals in order to function and coexist with their people! It also helps when I don’t have to yell commands at my dog when I am on the phone or immersed in conversation with another person. The Deaf Dog Education Action Fund (DDEAF) has a useful resources page on its website where you can find examples of hand signals. Some people use American Sign Language (ASL). And if your dog is training for a specific duty, such as for K-9, it may benefit him to teach your dog some dog training hand signals so you can “speak” to the dog in dangerous or high-tension situations. ![]() It’s not necessary that everyone around you understands your signals. Perhaps the best thing about dog training hand signals is that you can make up your own - and choosing them comes down to what’s best for you and your dog. This is bad news for putting behaviors completely on verbal cue, but good news for putting behaviors on a hand signal cue. Owners do these things so consistently that they become an important part of the picture for the dog, and the human doesn’t realize that the verbal cue is actually secondary. In fact, many dog folks think their dogs have learned verbal cues, only to find out that their dogs are actually keying off non-verbal communications the owner doesn’t even realize she’s making, such as a tiny bend forward at the waist with the “down” cue, or a slight movement of the hand toward the chest that accompanies the word “sit.” You’ll realize how truly brilliant your dog is when you see how quickly she comes to understand the meaning - and offer the requested behavior - for your body language cues for sit, down, come, and anything else you want to put on a nonverbal cue. Our dogs already assume our movements have meaning we just have to make sure they’re attaching the meaning we want them to have for our particular signals. This makes teaching dog training hand signals incredibly easy. McConnell writes in “The Other End of the Leash,” “All dogs are brilliant at perceiving the slightest movement that we make, and they assume that each tiny movement has meaning.” They depend on reading us to make their world work for them. Dogs need to make sense of our movements in order to survive. The general dog-owning population today is much more aware of the fact that dogs are, first and foremost, body language communicators, thanks to the work of people like Patricia McConnell, Ph.D., and Turid Rugaas. ![]() And hand signals can be used in many situations where a verbal cue just won’t work. If you make it a priority, your dog will pick up the hand signals quickly!Ĭommon hand signals are actually quite simple to teach your dog - much easier than getting behavior on verbal cue. Training is best when you work with your pet daily. then making the transition to hand signals is fairly straight forward. If your dog already is familiar with the standard commands: sit, stay etc. Once your dog is accurately responding to your commands slowly fade out the reward. Reinforce behavior with rewards (treats and praise).The most effective way to teach your dog is to follow these 2 steps: Your pet needs to learn the association between the verbal command and hand signals. Dog training hand signals are often harder for your dog to ignore because dogs communicate with each other using body language! He listens to your tone, and reads your body language but then begins to pay attention to other things in his environment. There is nothing wrong with this constant talking, but since most of it has little to no meaning for your dog he begins to “tune you out” to some degree. ![]() How often do you “talk” or “chatter” to your dog with no meaning? Our dogs often learn to ignore us and our commands. Dogs speak to each other with body language, and so learning dog training hand signals and reading your body language is like second nature to your dog. The first is that dogs learn common hand signals faster and easier than verbal commands. Utilize “BIG” hand signals so your dog can see them at a distance! I always teach my dogs hand signals, and there are several reasons. When training, hand signals for dogs are an extremely helpful tool and resource to help communicate better. ![]()
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