Dog Training Hand Commands

If an owner wishes along with using verbal commands to control their animal, they can also use hand commands as well. When it comes to teaching your dog the various different kinds of dog-training hand commands, you will in the beginning need to use verbal commands also. In this article, we look at just one of the ways in which a dog owner can teach such commands to their dog.

Certainly, teaching your dog hand signals is very simple and most dogs will find them very easy to understand. But in order to get started on training them you will need a few treats, which you can provide to your dog as a reward for getting what, you have asked (signalled) of them right.

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.

As you continually repeat the commands and signals you should very slowly you should start to eliminate the verbal commands. However, you should still use the rewards of food and praise for your dog when they respond to your hand signals only. For a while as you begin to slowly eliminate the verbal commands you should when carrying out the training, use them half of the time, and the other half of the time just hand signals.

Then when you start to notice that your dog is reacting purely to your hand commands only then this is the stage when you start to stop giving them food as a reward. However, you should never eliminate the rewards immediately from the training and if you want praise, them slightly for doing as commanded instead of offering them food.

When teaching your dog to react to hand signals it is best to start of with the most basic commands that you would normally teach them. So it is best to start with sit, down and stay. Then when you feel able to and when you feel that your dog is capable you can move on to much more elaborate ones if you wish.

Actually getting advice on the right way dog training hand commands should be done is easy. There are plenty of sites on the internet today that can offer lots of practical advice and tips. Plus there are plenty of books and videos, which can help you with training your dog to respond to such hand signals.