Why I Hate Hand Signals

Do you want to know why I hate hand signals? 


There is a few reasons why I hate using hand signals in dog training, and I’m going to go over the biggest two. I always get push back from owners on, but my dog listens really well to the hand signal. I know they do! I know they learn faster through using hand signals (also understand them when teaching all behaviors we lure with our hand, and develop a hand signal with every command. However, I do immediately get away from using the hand signal when I feel like the dog has an understanding of the word. Let’s go over why.

1. Hand signals are only reliable when your dog is looking at you. Do you I think I’m going to have a hard time getting my dog to listen if I have their 100 percent attention? No. Your verbal cue needs to be strong because you are going to rely on this in almost all scenarios, whether your dog is looking at you or not, whether your hands are full or not, or whether you are looking at your dog or not. Hand signals can only be done in one of those scenarios. That’s not good enough.
2. Humans lack the ability to separate word from hand sign. Your word should always come first. Always. When teaching your dog sit, down anything, before you offer a hand signal, you must say the word for your dog to understand. Think of this. If I where to punch you in the face and say purple at the same time, and repeat this process three times, the fourth time that I say purple without punching you in the face you're gonna have no idea what's going to happen next because you never had time to process the purple man punch in the face. You were too worried about the physical feeling of punch in the face instead of listening to the word purple. However if I said purple, delayed a half a second and punched you, repeated a second time, on the third attempt that I say purple you would be ducking out of the way like you're in the movie the matrix. This is also how do you have to train your dog. You need to incorporate the verbal cue before there is any movement from your body.

If you don't believe me, I want you to try training your dog on all of their commands this week without moving your body at all. Film yourself, and watch. See if your dog can listen to only with your verbal cue, and see if they listen quickly. If they're not, we need to go back to the basics. I want you to tag yourself while training your dog with the #Sayitoncehandsfree Tag me in it, and let’s see how you train without your hand signals!






P.S. I teach all of my dogs and my clients dogs on hand signals, the dog understands and very quickly, but I get away from them immediately because I want to focus more on my verbal cue. That doesn't mean I will never use a hand signal, it just means that I need to put more emphasis type my words need power.