How Do I Teach My Dog with Hand Signals?
Hand signals are fun to teach and easy for most dogs to understand. All you need to get started with your dog are a few kibbles of food. There are several ways to teach your dog hand signals. Below, you will find one such method: Click Here
The first thing to do is to get your dog to associate a hand gesture with one of your command words; see below for tips on how you can link a specific motion to a specific command. From there, getting your dog to react to the hand signal alone is a matter of repetition.
Let’s assume that your dog already knows the association between a verbal command (“sit”) and the action you want him to perform (sitting). The next thing for you to do is to create a new association between an unfamiliar hand signal and the verbal command and action that he already knows. To get started, pair the verbal command with a hand signal (see below for examples of common hand signals). When the dog performs the correct action, immediately reinforce this behavior with a kibble. You will have to repeat this many times to ensure your dog understands the association.
While still using the food reward, gradually eliminate the verbal command. For a while, you might use the verbal command and hand gesture together half the time and the hand gesture alone half the time.
Once your dog reliably reacts to the silent hand gesture when you have the food, gradually remove the piece of food from the equation. Soon your dog will sit, lie down or come with just a motion of your hand.
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