Dogs Obedience Training

November 15th, 2008 by admin

Voice commands are great because your voice can take on countless tones and you can form countless numbers of word commands for your dog. However, hand signals have some advantages over voice commands. First off, hand signals are silent. This is great if, for example, everyone is asleep or there is a party going on and so there is a lot of interference with sound. Also, hand signals are a great way for new friends of the dog. Dogs normally respond only to their owners voice and other people who they consider “masters” so to speak. It may take a dog awhile to warm up to a new person and obey their voice commands.

Hand signals are more advanced than voice signals and are best taught after the dog has learned basic things like sit, stay, and come. The reason for this is that when you are teaching your dog hand signals, you should do so in conjunction with your voice. Eventually, you should be able to drop the voice part and the dog will still understand you.

For example, my dog knows and obeys the “come” command quite well. I added in a hand signal for “come” by snapping my fingers and pointing to the ground near me. When I was first teaching her this. I would say “come” while using my designated hand signal. A treat or reward was occasionally provided as well. After some time, simply snapping my fingers, with or without the snap sound, was enough to get her to come to me.

Another hand signal I have taught my dog is to stay. I firmly raise my right hand and make the stop signal much like a traffic officer would do.

Teaching a dog both stay and come at the same time is a good idea since they go hand and hand. Both are very useful and I find that the hand signals get used more often because they are easier to perform.

Just remember that with any training, time and patience are the key.

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Author : Laura Walsh

[source: Dog Gone News]