Training Your Dog through Hand Signals
It doesn’t make a difference where you go. You’ll see that people, anywhere, love to have their own pets. Some think of pets as a highly cherished part of their life. Of all the various kinds of pets to own, the dog stands out as the most owned type. What may explain this is that having dogs, compared to other pets, means having a pet that can be trained.
To do this, they must undergo dog training to be familiar with visual signal and voice commands. But then, dogs tend to learn to discern our body language better than the nuances in our voices. We’re talking about hand signals here. They are common; we see them on TV and with other people’s pets. But it takes some hard work to instill the hand signals into your pets, and make these signals a part of your communication with your dog.
But there is no consensus on a set of hand signals used in training dogs. The popular ones used are voice orders — heel, come, sit, stay, and so on. You can achieve much the same effects with hand signals. Train your dog how to sit by moving your hands close to your chest with palms facing up. This is convenient especially when you are physically close to your dog. Or, grab his collar and push his behind down until he sits. To make him heel, gesture your arms downward and with palms extended. To make him stay put, with palm flat and close to his nose, but not touching, extend your arm. When he begins to sniff your extended hand, stop it gently. To make him lie on his belly, show him an open hand with palm faced downwards, while sweeping with your arm. To make him approach you, with elbows bent and arms close to you, bend and extend your arms and move them close to your torso. These visual gestures are common, but this doesn’t mean this will come easy for your dog.
To thoroughly train your dog to obey your orders, it may be best to mix some hand signals with some voice orders. This will expose him to a large array of both your voice and your own gestures. He will pay close attention more and will tend to associate order with what is expected of him. After religiously training him, your dog will easily recognize your orders and obey them. Keep in mind that your dog should learn these in a fun way so he’ll learn faster.
Reward your dog for getting commands right, but don’t spank or hit him when he doesn’t get your orders. When your dog has mastered your hand signals, he is then ready for even more training. Try enrolling him in advanced doggie training courses, or, you can do this yourself. Just make time to do so and devote your full attention; that way, you bond more with your dog and he will reciprocate the attention, and he will impress you with his skills.
Have a great “dog training” day,
Dr. Alfonso
