[TotallyAwesome]

I was on the phone yesterday, and puppy (5 and half months old), was about to chew an unauthorised item as he was getting bored. As I did not want to interrupt my phone conversation I instead:

• Snapped fingers
• When he turned towards me, I made facial expression for "No. Stop immediately"
• Hand gesture pointing to his bed.

He immediately went to his bed. I did not teach him the "snapping of fingers part", and the facial expression was more of a reflex.

While I am happy with the result, I would like to improve or build upon this for situations where we need to be quiet. Right from the start I have been associating verbal commands with hand gestures, and also trying to get him to understand when I point to things.

The one thing I did not teach is the snapping of fingers, so wondering if there is anything I need to do to strengthen this, or if it is already something he has just learned? Is it just because it is a sudden short noise? Will he eventually ignore it? Do I need to reward it, or reward just the action after the following command. Or should I link this snapping of fingers to "watch me" ?
I guess this will work only in situations where there isn't much ambient noise, but I guess its ok, because I'm looking to use this method just when we need to be quiet.

 

[drparker151]

A lot of dog to dog communication is body language. Reward the response to the snap or the point, reinforcing them.

I read a study a few years ago where they tracked dogs brainwaves and they do read our facial expressions and like it when we smile.

 

[TotallyAwesome]

A lot of dog to dog communication is body language. Reward the response to the snap or the point, reinforcing them.

I read a study a few years ago where they tracked dogs brainwaves and they do read our facial expressions and like it when we smile.

Thank you, I will use this more often in training 👍

 

[Quorthun]

I was on the phone yesterday, and puppy (5 and half months old), was about to chew an unauthorised item as he was getting bored. As I did not want to interrupt my phone conversation I instead:

• Snapped fingers
• When he turned towards me, I made facial expression for "No. Stop immediately"
• Hand gesture pointing to his bed.

He immediately went to his bed. I did not teach him the "snapping of fingers part", and the facial expression was more of a reflex.

While I am happy with the result, I would like to improve or build upon this for situations where we need to be quiet. Right from the start I have been associating verbal commands with hand gestures, and also trying to get him to understand when I point to things.

The one thing I did not teach is the snapping of fingers, so wondering if there is anything I need to do to strengthen this, or if it is already something he has just learned? Is it just because it is a sudden short noise? Will he eventually ignore it? Do I need to reward it, or reward just the action after the following command. Or should I link this snapping of fingers to "watch me" ?
I guess this will work only in situations where there isn't much ambient noise, but I guess its ok, because I'm looking to use this method just when we need to be quiet.

You spoke dog.
I interpreted it as, You interrupted the dog snapping your fingers, dog sensed your emotional state, dog obeyed your command as you gave a dominant command.
Call it "dominance", "leadership", "alpha", "pack leader", "master", "pet parent", "authority figure", this is most likely why your dog obeyed you.
You don't always need to offer a reward or give a correction to have your dog respect you as a leader. Good and proper body language and communication many times is enough. I would still reward the dog after they went to bed to reinforce that listening to you is not only required, but fun and rewarding.

 

[Pawsed]

Dogs are always learning from us, whether we intend to teach them something or not, good and bad. These are smart dogs and they pick up things 24/7 by just being around us. I would say that the majority of what my dog knows are things I never taught him, not the commands that I did teach.

 

[dogfaeries]

Dogs are always learning from us, whether we intend to teach them something or not, good and bad. These are smart dogs and they pick up things 24/7 by just being around us. I would say that the majority of what my dog knows are things I never taught him, not the commands that I did teach.

And it’s really easy to inadvertently train a behavior you weren’t expecting, lol.