Hand Signals and Body Language in Training

When we speak to our dog, what do they hear? What do they see? 
How often do you talk to your dog? How often do you talk near your dog?

Dogs are visual first. If you're anything like me, you talk to and around your dog often. Your words go in one ear and out another because it's noise. White noise. White noise is the stuff that your dog hears that doesn't register as being significant. Why doesn't it register as being significant? Well, because we have big vocabularies and are often very inconsistent in our words, our tone, and our follow-through when we are using cues and commands with our dogs. So what do dogs do? They watch our body language. They watch our every move. They anticipate the release from "stay" when they watch our facial expressions and see us take that breath in right before we verbally release them. This was pointed out to me when I was training my own dog, Willow, to try the sport of dock diving. 

She would break her "wait" as soon as she anticipated I was about to release her. I changed my body movements. I practiced fake outs with my arms and the rest of my body. She caught on quickly but was still a fraction of a second ahead of me releasing her. It finally clicked - it was that slight breath in that she continued to break on. How crazy is that?

So... hand signals. Use consistent hand signals and if used along with the verbal, you have an especially strong cue!

Here are some of my favorites:

Have fun with your dog!