Over the past couple of weeks me and Anushka have been working on taking verbal commands and relaying them in hand gestures. I never thought it would go so fast. She now knows hand gestures for sit, speak, down, off, shake, kiss, stay, and go. She's also picked up a head nod, like when a human picks their chin up quick in a "hey what's up" manner. Anyone else have their husky doing this? This has only started since we began work on the non-verbal commands. I'm not sure what she's trying to say with the "what's up" thing.

My female understands non-verbal commands. She knows mine and hubby has a couple of his own.

Yep. I've always taught hand signals along with my verbal cues. The girls listen better to the cues then me actually saying the command.

In ya'lls experience have your dogs made up their own signals for something they want? I'm just trying to figure out what the head nod means.

No idea what it could be.. keep an eye out for when she does it and see if you can spot the trigger? it might give you some clue to what it is

My first dog was GSD and I didn't intend to use gestures with her, I just found myself doing the same movements as I was training her so I tried the gesture without speaking and she did what I wanted.

I did the same with Wispa and now I doing it with Sky and she is catching on quick

When we were training, I figured out Danzig responds far better to hand signals.

Not sure what the head nod could mean. Danzig usually does this while standing at the back door. It's his cue to go potty. I would see what else their doing at the time.

Stark's trained on pretty much every hand signal for his tricks except for speak & whisper (need to find good ones to differentiate those). For my next dog, though, I'm going to see if I can correlate the hand signals to the standard sign language.

Same with Link, he responds better to hand gestures than words. I did some research and this is apparently common for dogs with high prey drive.....they focus on things that move. Makes sense.

He knows most basics in hand signals and if I include a snap of my fingers he really pays attention and follows the command, works great.

UndarthAngipoo wrote:

Stark's trained on pretty much every hand signal for his tricks except for speak & whisper (need to find good ones to differentiate those). For my next dog, though, I'm going to see if I can correlate the hand signals to the standard sign language.

With my previous dog Roxzanna, I would point my finger straight up in the air for speak, whisper I just put my finger on my lips like telling someone to Shhh! Lol. Both of my previous dogs picked up on hand signals pretty quick. I always did them along with the verbal command, so it was fairly easy to transition them to just hand signals.

How did you start speak though? Speak on command is the next thing I'm gonna work on.

seattlesibe wrote:

How did you start speak though? Speak on command is the next thing I'm gonna work on.

When Sheba started to howl, in the middle of her doing it I would say "Speak Sheba!" and she would howl again. For me it worked out better when she was being super vocal and crazy hyper so I wouldn't just say "Speak!" and her do nothing. That kind of defeats the purpose LOL. That's pretty much it. After about a week of saying "Speak!" while she was already speaking, she "speaks" on command now .

Just like with all commands, some dogs pick them up faster then others, so don't get discouraged .

Well near the end of the afternoon training session she did the head nod again. Seems to be that she's wanting/waiting for another command as there were no other indicators or outside influences . Her eyes were on me when she did it and not looking at anything but me. We also train outside so I'm pretty sure it's not her saying she needs to break. We do about 20 minutes per session twice a day that way she doesn't get bored and antsy. If it's not her way of saying "Still ready to work Dad" I have no clue.

Sheba&Kennedy wrote:

seattlesibe wrote:

How did you start speak though? Speak on command is the next thing I'm gonna work on.

When Sheba started to howl, in the middle of her doing it I would say "Speak Sheba!" and she would howl again. For me it worked out better when she was being super vocal and crazy hyper so I wouldn't just say "Speak!" and her do nothing. That kind of defeats the purpose LOL. That's pretty much it. After about a week of saying "Speak!" while she was already speaking, she "speaks" on command now .

Just like with all commands, some dogs pick them up faster then others, so don't get discouraged .

Thanks. Oddly enough, we went into our pet store today just to say hi and then he gets treats, of course. The manager asked him to speak, randomly, and she waited and he did! I told her about this thread and Speak being the next thing he is gonna learn, so her and I worked on it together in the store and he was doing it great. He kinda woos and half-howls

I started using the gesture of pointing to my chin for him to Speak. Seems to work already. What fun!

Micole knows hand gestures too and actually understand hebrew better than english. When i speak in english i have to say it a few times she gets stubborn with me more. When I use hand gestures it doesn't take very long and hebrew she is on it!