Silence is Golden – but is it LAB too?
Written by Pam on February 8, 2015
Here at HGT we are starting to teach our puppies silent dog commands. While we still use the verbal commands, dog training hand signals can be very useful. The benefits of having the dogs learn the verbal and the non-verbal commands are important in many ways. To train the dog and have the dog react to a hand-signal at a distance is not only remarkable but it can be life-saving if you need the dog to get ‘down’ at a moments notice. Hand signals are also very important as our dogs age, they might loose their hearing and will only be able to recognize the silent command.
Dog’s already read our body language and catch on to a number of noises or phrases that we say to them repetitively so they already are skilled at interpreting what we say and actually what we do – when using hand gestures :*)
Interesting enough, when I start to teach our 7 week old puppies to ‘sit’, most of the time, a pointed finger to the ground where I want them to plant their rear is all I need to do. We are ingrained to train verbal commands when a pointed finger to the ground is enough body language that the puppy needs to perform the ‘sit’ command.
You may want to start some silent dog commands – you will be so proud to see your young HGT puppy, sit when learning a silent command.
Try the hand signal for ‘sit’ …
1) Start with your puppy standing in front of you
2) Have a tasty treat in the hand that you write with
3) Keep that arm hanging normally alongside your body
4) Bend your elbow with your palm of your hand facing upward
5) Move this same hand that is holding the treat upward from your dog’s nose toward the head. Your pup will follow the treat while raising its head and lower its rear into a ‘sit’.
Below are a few pictures of our HGT’s TyTy working on the silent commands. Her attentiveness is LAB-perfect – even when we needed to leave her alone on her bed as we left the room, she stayed in a ‘down’ as we instructed her to do until we returned a minute or two later. She is also showing us her learned command to “go to bed”! Enjoy, Pam
