“Can we play the signals game, Aunt Maggie?” My almost 4-year-old nephew, Owen, asked.
“I don’t know that game. You’ll have to teach it to me.”
He sighed. “Yes, you do. The signals game.” He gestured with his hand a few times. “That we play with Emmett.”
Oooooh.
Weeks ago I showed Owen how Emmett responded to hand signals. For instance, an upturned palm means sit.
Little did I know, Owen had so much fun doing hand signals with Emmett that, in his mind, he turned it into The Signals Game.
And so we played it. And we continued to play The Signals Game every time I visited Owen with the dogs in tow.
When we adopted Emmett in 2006, we picked him up from the shelter on a Thursday, and we took our very first training class that Saturday. Our trainer (hi, Jeree!) taught us to use hand signals with Emmett from the very beginning, so we incorporated that into our training with Lucas and, of course, with Cooper.
Cooper excels at hand signals. The other two are good with them and respond frequently without the paired verbal cue. But Cooper? If you teach him something with a paired hand signal, he gets it right away. Verbal cues take him much longer.
There’s some research to suggest that dogs inherently understand our pointed gestures, so it makes sense that if they’re hardwired to understand those types of cues, hand signals can work well. (If you haven’t read The Genius of Dogs: How Dogs Are Smarter than You Think
Further, it didn’t occur to me until I read your comments on the post about aging that hand signals are great to teach before dogs experience any hearing loss.
I tried to think of all the cues we use that have associated hand signals:
- sit – upturned palm
- stand – fist
- down – pointer finger pointing to the ground
- speak – “talking” hands
- stay – hand up, palm out in a “stop”
- wait – hand pointed to the left, palm out, swipe downward
- watch me – touch nose with pointer finger
- roll over – spin pointer finger
- touch – hand pointed to the right, palm out
- wave – waving
Now, having read The Genius of Dogs, plus Coop’s proficiency with hand signals, plus your helpful comments… I’m trying to think of additional cues that could use hand signals! I’m thinking “come” could use a hand signal, especially if they’re ever too far away to hear me call. And perhaps some other tricks?
Do you use hand signals? What cues do you use that have an associated signal?
Bow– sweeping hand across your body, almost like taking a bow yourself.
Spin (to my left) –finger pointing down spinning clockwise.
Spin (to my right)– finger pointing down spinning counterclockwise.
Oh, those are good ones, Erik! Thanks for sharing! Off to work on bow… 🙂
Great post! My dog responds best to body language so using hand signals has been very helpful. I have a “quiet” command where I move my index finger in front of my mouth in a “shhh” fashion. For “come”, I use an upward palm and flex the fingers towards myself (kind of like this http://www.maria-brazil.org/newimages/comeheregesture.jpg).
Sign language books are a great resource to get more ideas for hand gestures. Happy training!
Excellent suggestion! I never would have thought to look in a sign language book, but when I head to the library this weekend, I’ll pull one off the shelf. Thanks so much for that brilliant idea!
Very cute! We do use hand signals with Pyrrha, and she can often respond to them without any other movement from us or verbal cue. My problem lately is figuring out more specific, distinguishable signals for new commands. She keeps interpreting the “stay” (identical to your signal) as the “down” command, so I obviously need to make them clearer!
That is tough. We encountered that when we realized that our cues for touch, high fave, and wave were all really similar. Emmett would just wave and wave and wave… I’ve been trying to make them more distinct, but like you said it’s so not easy!
We use hand signals as well. Some are proofed with my crew, requiring no verbal cue, especially if a treat is involved. Some are the same as yours, some different. I think it is really cute that your nephew picked up on the “signal” game.
Haha! I know… it’s adorable. A budding dog trainer! It’s funny how a treat makes such a big difference, huh? 🙂
This is awesome! We’ve been using some hand signals and Titan is very receptive to them “most” of the time. I’d rather use hand signals than say words however triggers words work very well for him. I think it’s great you’ve been doing it with all your babies. Awesome stuff Maggie!
Thanks for the kind words, Bren! We have some that are paired, so there’s a signal that goes with the verbal cue. My hope would be that either – the hand signal or the verbal – would work just as well, but I’ve found that isn’t always the case. I guess it’s how I’m signaling or reinforcing? For example, the verbal “down” is nowhere near as effective as the hand signal for down, though I’m not sure why…
We use hand signals a lot, even though one trainer told us not to because “then you have to use the hand signal every time.” Which was absolutely not true – while I do my best to work on each command that uses a hand signal with only a verbal cue, only a hand signal, or both, sometimes the dogs just respond better to one or the other. Eddie had difficulty learning commands with verbal cues alone sometimes, but hand signals were much easier for him – we use them for sit, stay, here (vital as they go where we point!), crawl, roll over, down, get outta there, go to your room, and a few others.
Hmm… I’ve not heard that before, but I agree with you that isn’t accurate. You’re absolutely right that some cues work better with one than the other. With my herd, I haven’t quite pinpointed why/which is which, but like Eddie Cooper is just much better at hand signals. I guess it’s like how some people are visual learners, whereas others are auditory?
Now that our beagle Kobi is going deaf, I wish we had taught him hand signals. But he does seem to catch on quickly to basic ones anyway. I think I’ve used some almost unconsciously, like the ones for down and stay. And he seems to understand when I wave my hands towards me (like directing traffic), that means come!
I’m sure he’ll pick up on them quickly! Some are probably intuitive, like you said, and some you’ve probably been doing subconsciously!