Have you ever seen the Far Side cartoon where the man is talking to his dog, giving her a good scolding? In the first frame the man says to his dog, “Okay, Ginger! I’ve had it! You stay out of the garbage! Understand, Ginger? Stay out of the garbage, or else!”
The second panel of the cartoon shows us what Ginger is actually taking in: “Blah blah GINGER blah blah blah blah blah blah GINGER blah blah blah blah blah…” and so on. Ginger looks on, attentively but with a blank expression. For all we know she’s basking in the attention her owner is bestowing on her by calling her name repeatedly.
From a dog trainer’s perspective, it’s such a brilliant cartoon. Not only does it illustrate, with humor, that beratement is an ineffective form of punishment for a dog, it also shines a light on how verbal we humans are when training and interacting with our dogs and how very few of our words actually get through to them.
I’ll let you in on a little trade secret. If you want better communication with your canine companion, talk with your hands. It’s funny, frequently, when people are proud of their dog’s accomplishments and want to show them off to me, they often show a trick or two, and then inevitably they’ll say,
“Look he even knows hand signals!” It’s always said as a point of pride, as if they’ve reached a higher level of training. What these sweet and dedicated people don’t realize is that dogs are much more adept at reading our body language than they are at learning our verbal signals. Hand signals are super easy to teach to a dog; words, not so much.
In fact dogs never actually learn our spoken language; rather, they learn the significance of certain verbal signals. What that means is, with careful training (or tons and tons of sloppy but occasionally well-timed verbal repetitions that happen as we babble away to them incessantly), dogs come to realize that certain words are relevant to them, in that they provide reliable benefits or signal that trouble is on the way.
If you want your dog to reliably respond to your verbal cues, it’s faster and actually helpful to clearly teach them hand signals first. Following a lure or a hand target to help place your dog in the desired position and then rewarding him for said position makes training a breeze. It’s also hands off, which is great, because touch can mask learning.
Okay, so perhaps I’ve burst a few bubbles by implying that hand signals aren’t very fancy. Take heart, they are still important! Because they are easier for your dog to understand right off the bat, teaching hand signals goes pretty darn fast. A great side effect of teaching your dog to watch for body language cues from you is that in order to do so he has to already be keyed into you, paying attention! And having your dog’s undivided attention is more than half of the journey to having a well-behaved, responsive dog. A dog who is gazing at his handler awaiting a signal is not a dog who is pulling or lunging at other dogs or running clear across the park out of shouting distance, so it’s a very good thing to cultivate your dog’s attention.
As my dear old dog Dune nears eleven years of age he has developed some hearing loss. I am thankful that we have hand signals as a form of communication, not just spoken commands.
Another great thing about hand signals is that they can help you teach your dog to respond to verbal cues, which of course are great to train as well, because we do talk to our dogs so much. We can’t help it! Verbal cues or whistles do come in handy when our dogs are out of sight or at great distances.
Here is how to properly and efficiently teach your dog to respond to a verbal cue, once you’ve got your hand signals already in place.
As a general rule of thumb, don’t say a word in training unless you are able to prompt your dog into the desired position within seconds after your verbal signal. If you wouldn’t bet $50 on the dog following through with the requested action, don’t bother saying the signal. Instead, go back to practicing making the behavior reliable with a more salient body language cue. Reward generously for correct responses.
Once your hand signal reliably prompts the behavior, say your verbal cue once and then immediately prompt the behavior with your hand signal and reward your dog for compliance.
(It is super important that your verbal cue comes just before the physical cue, not simultaneously. Saying the word at the same time as you give a hand signal will likely cause your words to become overshadowed, and your poor dog will only hear what Ginger heard, “Blah blah blah.”)
Practice this new sequence over and over, in short sessions, in several varying contexts, for several days. The goal is to teach your dog that your verbal cue is a reliable predictor of what comes next – the hand signal. So much so that she begins to associate the two and anticipates what comes next so well that she responds to your request even before you can get your hand signal out.
Voila! Once your dog has made the association, try using just the verbal cue, making sure to reward very enthusiastically for mastering this more difficult task and to maintain the relevance. You’ll increase your dog’s vocabulary in no time.
Kelly Gorman Dunbar is Director of the Center for Applied Animal Behavior, where she recruits and trains the instructors for the Dunbar family business, SIRIUS® Puppy & Dog Training. She is the creator of the SIRIUS Sniffers scent-detection program, and is in the process of bringing the French sport of cavage (truffle hunting) to the US. Kelly is also Founder and President of Open Paw and consults on various matters.
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