Training Hand Commands

Most of my hand commands just came naturally. They are movements I use to originally train the dog the trick, since I start with a hand command and add verbal commands later. I don't know if mine are "right", but I use whatever comes naturally and most effectively communicates with the dog. Most of them didn't take a lot of thought, though I did change one recently b/c I was inadvertently confusing my dog.

I do the same with Ava, it was more by accident then by design

I'm not sure there are any 'correct' hand signals, I think you can pretty much use whatever makes sense to you. Since I initially taught my dogs as puppies by luring with food, I use hand signals that are basically a more subtle version of the lures. Even though I got the treat out of the lure hand within the first couple of training sessions and started treating from the other hand, they responded so well to the hand signal that I actually had to work harder to teach them verbal-only commands.

Thanks for the reponses. I thought that maybe there was a standard for all hand commands. I will just continue doing what I have been doing.

My working dog knows several hand commands for work purposes....and then I taught some to my other dog just for something fun and new to do. The way I've learned to do it is just to make very big hand/arm motions at the same time you give the verbal command. Then gradually over time work out the verbal command and they learn to just go by the hand. They actually learn the body language faster in my experience. For the sake of wanting accuracy when you're at a distance from your dog, I would keep it simple and whole arm movements.....such as rasing your arm/hand up for a sit, and down for a down. For come, although I use a modified version of this, I like what another person on this forum said they do, which is extend both arms straight out to the sides.

This is a site someone gave me when I wanted to learn the same thing. I don't get as involved with all of them, but I do use the more common commands.

http://www.bordercollierescue.org/breed_advice/Content/UniCommands.html