Hand Command vs Verbal Command

[Eric Vecc]

I am wondering why my dog responds better to a hand command than he does to a verbal command. Here's the situation. He knows all the basics by verbal command because I did not use a hand signal (sit, stay, down, speak). But the recent tricks I taught him required a hand motion. I gave the verbal command every time I gave the hand command but if I only give the verbal he looks at me like I am speaking Martian. For example, I taught him out to spin. I did this by dragging a treat around him as he followed. I said spin as I did this and would reward when the circle was complete. I slowly brought by hand up higher and higher until all I had to do was a quick flick of the wrist and he did the spin. But if I am holding a treat and just say "SPIN" he sits, shakes, lays down and does all of his tricks because he has no idea what I am saying. Similar thing with shake; he will only respond to my extended hand and not the word "SHAKE". He is also catching on to tricks much faster when there is a hand motion involved. Why is this? Is it easier for him to understand? Last night I taught him to walk between my legs to retrieve a treat that is in my hand by my side. Yeah, no real reason but to show off at parties. Anyway, I put the treat in my hand and let my arm hang by my side. I say legs and he goes through my legs and will pluck the treat from my hand. I use the command "LEGS" every time but he will ONLY do it if my hand is by my side. If I hold my hand in front of me and say "LEGS", he looks at me like I am the idiot. Anyone have experience with a dog responding better to hand commands or verbal commands?

[Melissa Brunoehler]

HI Eric~

Dogs are visual learners and it is much easier for them to learn hand signals than it is to learn verbal cues. Where I help teach obedience classes we do not teach hand signals for this very reason. If you use your hand & treat as a lure to teach Bailey something new you have to be sure to eliminate the lure early(this can be tricky). You want to practice a few times with the lure then you need to say the command & wait for him to figure it out. You can help him if you really need to, but be patient b/c if you always do it for him(use lure/hand signal) there isn't any reason for him to figure it out on his own. Once Bailey performs a task without a lure you need to be sure to never use the lure again b/c at that point he has learned the cue.

Hope this makes sense

I am wondering why my dog responds better to a hand command than he does to a verbal command. Here's the situation. He knows all the basics by verbal command because I did not use a hand signal (sit, stay, down, speak). But the recent tricks I taught him required a hand motion. I gave the verbal command every time I gave the hand command but if I only give the verbal he looks at me like I am speaking Martian. For example, I taught him out to spin. I did this by dragging a treat around him as he followed. I said spin as I did this and would reward when the circle was complete. I slowly brought by hand up higher and higher until all I had to do was a quick flick of the wrist and he did the spin. But if I am holding a treat and just say "SPIN" he sits, shakes, lays down and does all of his tricks because he has no idea what I am saying. Similar thing with shake; he will only respond to my extended hand and not the word "SHAKE". He is also catching on to tricks much faster when there is a hand motion involved. Why is this? Is it easier for him to understand? Last night I taught him to walk between my legs to retrieve a treat that is in my hand by my side. Yeah, no real reason but to show off at parties. Anyway, I put the treat in my hand and let my arm hang by my side. I say legs and he goes through my legs and will pluck the treat from my hand. I use the command "LEGS" every time but he will ONLY do it if my hand is by my side. If I hold my hand in front of me and say "LEGS", he looks at me like I am the idiot. Anyone have experience with a dog responding better to hand commands or verbal commands?

[Alberta Hanko]

Hi Eric - This was the same problem I was having with my Linus in Cyberagility Class. The problem, it seems, is the hand motion has become the cue. It takes a while, but you can slowly fade the hand motion, and the word will become the cue. I am still using a hand signal for spin--since Linus has not gotten the word cue yet--but I have faded the treat as a lure, and he gets the treat when it is completed. As for going between your legs--we do that also, and he is now going on a "through" command. I use a clicker, so I would first lure him through, and as he was running through, I would say "through", and click treat. I did that three times, and then started fading the lure. We also did this on his homemade jump--and this really took time. I was using my hands at first, and it took a long time. Probably the simplest thing to work in is "shake". He sits, you put your hand out, he gives you his paw, you say shake and treat. As you continue to work on this, you can fade the hand signal. My questions are have you tried clicker training? And have you tried freeshaping? (Freeshaping is where you stand your guy let's say in front of a ball, and for every move closer to the ball, you click and treat. You decide when to up the ante, and he works harder to figure what you want without you sayig anything or moving.) It's fun, and does build a strong response from your dog.

Alberta & Linus

[Jill Ramsey]

Eric,
How tall is Bailey? Finnegan was taught to go between my legs when he was smaller. Now, I can't let him do it anymore--he's too tall. :smack: :shock: He almost knocks me over when he does it. It took us awhile to get him to stop! he would automatically do it when he was happy to see us.

[Chris Smith]

I can't answer your question Eric, but here's a side note on when it may be good for the dog to know a hand signal along with the verbal. In Nalu's new training class the instructor just talked to us about using a hand signal for two commands instead of just a verbal - stay and down. She said that if a dog is out of ear shot and running towards you in a dangerous situation (crossing a street, etc.), if you use the hand command for stay or down, it can get the dog to immediately stop running toward you and avoid the dangerous situation.

[Eric Vecc]

Melissa, you nailed just what I suspected. I have always noticed that Bailey learns much faster by watching me than by my verbal command. When I taught "COME", I always put my hands on my knees and bent over while saying the command. This was my way of showing that I am 'fun' to come to and made it easier to have a 'party' when he came. Now, he responds to this more reliably than the verbal que.



Alberta, Yes I have tried clicker training but am not real good at it and never saw a great response from Bailey. I was never fast enough to click at the right time and never knew exactly when to click. For instance, I was teaching the "WATCH" command and would hold the treat out at arms length, and then I would wait till his eyes hit mine and c/t. But his eyes would dart so fast, it was hard to catch him. Or when doing sit/stay, do I click when he sits or when I want him to end the stay? Also, I never the purpose in Free Shaping (I'm sure there is good use for it, I just never asked or looked into it). Why would you do this in front of a toy? I am assuming this is to teach him that playing with his toys is a good thing. (Bailey has no problem with that, I need to teach him to leave me heck alone sometimes. He is constantly sticking those slimy toys into my lap!)



Here’s a thought though...is it necessarily bad to have a dog responding to verbal commands? It teaches them to watch the owner. It also means the commands can be given in noisy situations and be clearly understood. I also know that commands given in different tones can register as different things to a dog. Any thoughts on why one would want to remove hand ques?



Jill, I thought about that when I started teaching this yesterday. We just taught him shake and now he walks up to us while we are eating and starts flinging that long arm out in an attempt to earn a reward. It looks kind of funny but could be disastrous with commands such as our "LEGS" trick. I think those dog traits are funny, so I guess I don't mind. We taught him spin and now when he is excited and wants something, he starts spinning around in circles - pretty funny.

[Rebekah Hartman]

Dogs do learn visual cues more easily than verbal ones. I find that Samson will respond more quickly to a visual cue than a verbal one. Once he knows a given cue, however, I will only give one or the other most of the time. Then I give him 30 seconds to respond (if there are distractions, since that's what we're working on now) and if he doesn't, he gets a "no-reward marker" and we start over. This way I'm not repeating myself a thousand times and making him think that "Sit-sit-sit" is a command, rather than "Sit". When we have kids, we are going to follow a one-time obey rule, so I figure we might as well get some practice with the dog ahead of time. ;)

I like having a visual cue because it offers me a way to give a command at a greater distance and with distractions. If he's "looking at me", he can follow instructions even if there are 10 people/animals standing between himself and me and he wouldn't be able to hear me.

Oh, by the way, if there were 10 people/animals between us he wouldn't do what I said no matter how I presented it (ah, the joys of doggie adolescence) but I'm hoping one day....

[Rebekah Hartman]

I guess Eric and I were posting at the same time...

Just wanted to add a word about clicker training. I know it's not for everyone, but we've had great success. As an example, Samson's favorite thing in the world appears to be water (with the exception of people or other dogs), but I think if I had a filet mignon in one hand and a bowl of water in the other, he'd go for the water.... He's weird, I know. Anyway, today we were playing in the yard and I thought I'd do a little informal heeling without a leash in my hand (he was on a 40-ft tether since we don't have a fenced yard). So, I started walking and said "heel" and he came right up to my left side for a click/treat (c/t). We did that a couple times and then he headed off to the water dish at which time I'd started to say "heel" again. He got to where his head was in the dish ready to slurp and he stopped, looked back at me (I was walking along) and bolted straight over to my left side and fell in stride for a c/t. For us, I don't see this happening without a clicker to tell him exactly what the behavior I was looking for was.

I'm currently trying to figure out how to put whining on cue, because he does a lot more of that than we'd like and if you teach them to do it, it's easier to teach them to stop.

Oh, another note about visual cues - I just read something about a visual cue for "Speak", which would be really nice if you hear something outside and have a dog that might not bark on his/her own (or that you want to keep barking)- you can give the visual cue and whomever is outside will hear the dog without hearing someone else giving the "Speak" command. Then you can do a verbal "Thank you" or a finger over your lips ("shh") sign to get them to stop. I think I'd like those when my husband is deployed and I'm alone in the house at night for months. At least I can make it sound like I have a big, scary dog protecting me.

[Melissa Brunoehler]

Hey Eric~

[QUOTE=Eric Vecc]Melissa, you nailed just what I suspected. I have always noticed that Bailey learns much faster by watching me than by my verbal command. When I taught "COME", I always put my hands on my knees and bent over while saying the command. This was my way of showing that I am 'fun' to come to and made it easier to have a 'party' when he came. Now, he responds to this more reliably than the verbal que.

Yes I see this sort of thing all the time in class. People will ask for a "down" and when they do they hunch over their dog. This body position becomes the cue rather than the word.

Here’s a thought though...is it necessarily bad to have a dog responding to verbal commands? It teaches them to watch the owner. It also means the commands can be given in noisy situations and be clearly understood. I also know that commands given in different tones can register as different things to a dog. Any thoughts on why one would want to remove hand ques?

Hmmm I do not use hand signals & my dogs are pretty awesome at watching & paying attention to me.
I think both dog & owner can have a lot of fun with hand signals.
What I personally recommend is teach hand signals after your dog knows the verbal command inside & out. That way the dog will be able to respond to both verbal & visual cue.

[Grace Erick]

I taught my dog to go out in the yard w/o me by pointing. She tends to wait for me to accompany her when she poops, but if I don't feel like going out, I just point and she knows to go by herself. It really is using sign language with your dog and I have seen people use hand signals for sitting or the stay position.

New moms use it with kids since they don't understand language when they are too young, and the kids use it back so they tend to cry less, because they are understood as to what they want.

Bye, Grace

[Mario Niepel]

I think there is really nothing wrong in teaching your dog hand signals, verbal signals or both.

For some commands, having verbal signals seems to be indispensable. For example 'come', 'leave it' and 'watch me' are commands that need to be obeyed regardless of whether your dog is looking at you or not.

I do like teaching my dog with non-verbal cues. Sometimes, I just find them less bothersome. For example, when I walk Sammy on the leash, sometimes I want him to sit when I stop walking, and sometimes he gets to do whatever he wants (snuffeling, peeing, saying hello) when I stop walking. So, whenever I want him to sit (for example before we cross a road) I just shuffle my feet a tiny little bit and he immediately sits next to me. The funny thing is that most other people do not pick up on these minute visual cues. So they think Sammy is reading my mind. :)

[Jill Ramsey]

Instead of telling Finn to come all the time when I want him to be within a few feet of me, I have taught him "over here". When I say over here, he knows that I want him in my area. Not necessarily at the heel position, but within a couple feet of me. I use only the verbal command. It really started when he was potty training, and I wanted him to go in a certain area. I would say over here and give a tug on the leash. Now if he's at the other end of the dog pen (40 ft away) and want him by me I just tell him Over here. I'm also starting Fischer with the over here command.

[Melissa Brunoehler]

Hi Jill~

I use a similar command with my dogs. We do a lot of off leash hiking and I use "this way" when I need them to change direction & follow me.

Instead of telling Finn to come all the time when I want him to be within a few feet of me, I have taught him "over here". When I say over here, he knows that I want him in my area. Not necessarily at the heel position, but within a couple feet of me. I use only the verbal command. It really started when he was potty training, and I wanted him to go in a certain area. I would say over here and give a tug on the leash. Now if he's at the other end of the dog pen (40 ft away) and want him by me I just tell him Over here. I'm also starting Fischer with the over here command.

[Mario Niepel]

Melissa and Jill, I think that is really a great idea. One of the many reasons that dogs have problems with 'come' is that the command is greatly overused. I caught myself using 'come' whenever I wanted to continue walking my dogs on leash, but they were still busy snuffeling something. I eventually switched to 'let's go' instead and I am still working very hard to establish a solid recall with 'come'.

[Grace Erick]

I wish broccoli was a command, because my dog understands what that word means, lol. I give my parrot broccoli and say broccoli to reinforce his use of the word and Capri hears it from her bed in the bedroom and comes running in for a piece of it. Pets really learn words associated with good things like food or treats very quickly.

Bye, Grace

[Mario Niepel]

Grace, I have heard of a person using the word 'bacon' or 'hot dog' as emergency recall. :D

[Rebekah Hartman]

The only way we could get Bailey the Westie I grew up with to come if he got out of the house was to yell "treats!" and he'd come running. He'd come running into the kitchen when he heard the word "Oops", too because it usually meant we'd dropped food on the floor. He also learned to spell "B-A-T-H" after we started spelling instead of saying it since he'd run and hide if he heard the word. I know a lot of dogs that can spell "W-A-L-K", too.

[Monique Shimm]

I also use the command "this way." But I started to get tired of saying it all the time because our dog likes to wander. So now, I've been replacing it with a short whistle. I want to have Franny respond to one whistle as a "this way" and another whistle as a "come." I've been successful for the "this way" whistle - but not the "come". Too much at once?

[Eric Vecc]

Even though it is off the subject, my dog does a similar thing with the cats name. Bailey has an obsession with our cat. He has to know where he is at at all times. If the cat gets up and goes to the kitchen, the dog goes after him. He has learned our cats name and comes when we call it just as reliably as his own name. He also comes when we do the cat call (pssst, pssst). And it's funny because he doesn't come into the room like we were calling him, he comes in the room and starts scanning the room, like "where is he, I know he's here, they just called him".

As for the thread, I have spent the last few days reinforcing the verbal commands with pieces of gourmet treats - VERY YUMMY. He will now perform any trick based on just verbal or just visual. He is doing great and I like having the option of doing the hand or verbal commands. Also a good party trick to do (just hand signals).