Dog Training Hand Commands Guide

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.

Teaching your dog how to obey hand commands is very simple and generally, dogs find it very easy to understand these along with verbal commands.  Along with you and your dogs when you start this kind of training you will also need some kind of treat (food is ideal) that you can reward your dog with when they react in the correct way to the signal.  

It is crucial when you first start training your dog to react to hand commands rather than spoken ones is that you use the two in conjunction with each other.  Also, you need to first decide what signal will represent what spoken command that you want your dog to obey.  Only after you have made a decision on each hand command can you then start actually training your dog to respond to them.  

When you first start your dogs hand command training you will need to say the word and show them very deliberately the hand movement at the same time.  This you will need to repeat several times to them before they start to understand what it is that you would like them to do.  Immediately you notice that they have reacted as you begin to raise your hand and say the word then this is the time that they should be rewarded.

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.  

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 you are teaching your dog to respond to hand commands rather than verbal ones it is best that you start of with the basics.  So therefore, you should spend time teaching them the hand signals relating to sit, stay, come and down before you actually try anything a little more difficult.

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.