Dog Training Article - Hand Signals

by Jason Purgason

I recently had the pleasure of working with a couple in Davidson, North Carolina who wanted some training for a dog that they had rescued. They stated that the dog was found abandoned and they took it in, not knowing her history. The dog, Jessie, was a beautiful boxer/mix and was, I believe, 7-8 months old when they got her. The couple had the dog for some time before contacting me.

The gentleman called and stated that they wanted some general training for the dog. He explained that the dog was quite fearful and especially had a problem with men. He stated that she would growl, bark and run away anytime that new people, especially men, came to their home. He also stated that the dog would come to his wife when called but would not come to him at all.

I went to their home to begin teaching them how to train their dog. When I arrived, the dog began barking, growling and running from me. It was apparent that this phobic rescue had an issue with men.

Over the following weeks, our work with this dog seemed to be paying off. She had learned to sit, down, stay and heel on a leash and she was much better when meeting new people. However, coming was a bit of a different story. She would come, when on a leash, reluctantly. Jessie would come to me and the wife but for some reason would not come to him. We discussed the situation and the problems that he’d had previously with the dog coming to him and he explained that this was his biggest issue. I explained to him that because she was a rescue and he didn’t know her history, it was likely that she had some negative association with the come command in the past. After some more work and motivational games with Jessie, she began to come to the owner more consistently on the leash.

We began off-leash training with Jessie and knew that getting her to come when off the leash would be a challenge. I talked with the owner again and we discussed some possible reasons that she was reluctant to come to him. It came to light that there was a considerable amount of doubt, on his part, that the dog would actually come when called. He had spent all these prior months trying to get the dog to come to him to no avail. Therefore, he had it in his mind that when he called Jessie, that she was not going to come. This explains why Jessie would come to his wife and me consistently. We both had no preconceived notions about whether or not she would come to us because she had always done so.

I explained to the owner that Jessie was likely picking up on the doubt in his voice when he called her and the he should attempt to forget about all of the times in the past that she had not come when called. He worked on doing this for a while but we still did not see the results that we were looking for.

We began working on teaching Jessie the hand signal for the come command and something magical happened! All of a sudden, Jessie would come to the owner consistently, when given the hand signal. By using a hand signal for the command, we were able to accomplish a number of things. First, we were able to eliminate any previous negative associations that Jessie had with the word come. Second, we were able to give the owner a method of calling Jessie without her being able to read any doubt in his voice inflection. It was an infallible method of calling her.

After working with Jessie on her hand signals for several weeks the owner was happy to report:

“…went to the dog park in Cornelius and there were 6 to 8 dogs there. They were all together in a pack and I was 40-45 yards away. I called Jessie’s name (not loud) – she looked – and I gave her the hand signal for come. She came right over. Over the period of an hour I did it three times – all successful. She only had on the nylon collar. For me that was like an acid test for the hand signal. I had never attempted it in any situation like that.”

If you would like to discuss training or how we can assist you in eliminating behavioral problems please call 866.200.2207 or email training@highlandcanine.com