Dog Training Hand Commands
16 Mar 2010
As well as you teaching your dog to obey you through the use of verbal commands, you can also teach them to obey you when you only use hand signals instead. When it does come to you teaching your dog about such commands you will need to use them in conjunction with verbal commands in the beginning. In this article, we look at one of the ways in which dog training hand commands can be accomplished.
Teaching a dog how to obey hand commands rather than verbal ones can be achieved very simply. It will require some patience on your part, but having a few treats available when they do react in the right way can help things progress a lot more quickly and smoothly.
It is important that in the beginning when you are teaching your dog to react to hand commands is that you use the words as well. Therefore, you will need to decide which hand signals relate to which commands you will be giving to your dog. Only once you have made a decision on which verbal commands go with which hand signals can you then start your dogs training.
When you first start teaching your dog how to respond to hand commands rather than just your voice you should say each word very clearly and make the hand movement in conjunction with it. You will then need to spend time just repeating the word and the hand signal over a period of time until the dog actually understands what it is you require of them. Once you notice that your dog is responding as soon as you begin the movement and say the word then you should reward them.
It is important that you continue to use the verbal and hand commands for some time, but very slowly you start to voice the commands far less and use hand signals more. At this stage, you should now start to only reward your dog when they actually respond just to the hand commands rather than when you say the word as well. It is important that you do not eliminate the verbal commands straight away, but rather gradually eliminate them. In the beginning, it is a good idea to do half the training when you do the verbal and hand commands together, and the other half just using the hand commands on their own.
After a period of time when they have begun to purely respond to your hand commands then you can start beginning to eliminate the food rewards also. It is crucial that you do not stop providing such treats as soon as they start responding to hand commands, but gradually eliminate them and instead offer your dog praise instead.
When you are going to be teaching your dog to respond to hand commands rather than verbal ones it is a good idea to start of with the most basic commands that you want your dog to respond to. Most owners will start of with the ones we all learn in the beginning with our dogs, which is sit, stay, down and come. Only once you feel that you and your dog are ready should you be moving on to commands that are far more elaborate.
Getting the right kind of advice when it comes to you, teaching your dog to respond to hand commands is easy to find. There are lots of books, videos and websites that offer sound advice and information on what are the right dog training hand commands techniques that one should be using.
