Coming Up With Verbal Cues

[quangle]

Hi everyone

I am after some advice on choosing verbal cues to use for training my pup. I realise that sounds a bit silly as obviously any word will do, but I want to use good, clear descriptive words that I will easily remember when we have built up to lots of them.

What I am thinking of is when we do things like touch with one paw or the other. I can use 'paw' for one paw, but what word do you use when you want them to use the other paw?

And 'side' when I want her to come and stand by my left side, but what word to stand on my right side?

And what about things like weaving through my legs or pivoting around her front paws?

Are there fairly standard words that get used or is everyone totally individual?

I have watched a lot of Kikopup's youtube training videos and find they are great and they are working really well for us, but she talks about adding the cue, but you can rarely here what her cue is.

There just seem to be so many things that can be done in more than one direction or with more than one part of the body and I am running out of ideas.

Can anyone share the words they use for these sorts of things?

Much appreciated.

Mel

[corvus]

What I am thinking of is when we do things like touch with one paw or the other. I can use 'paw' for one paw, but what word do you use when you want them to use the other paw?

"Other one" That's what we use. Perfectly natural.

And 'side' when I want her to come and stand by my left side, but what word to stand on my right side?

We don't have one for this but use pointing and "here" or "this side" instead. I expect they pay more attention to the hands.

And what about things like weaving through my legs or pivoting around her front paws?

"Weave", and we don't have one for the other one. I've only put it on cue for Erik and used a gesture as if I were pulling his backside around to my side.

Are there fairly standard words that get used or is everyone totally individual?

I don't know. We make up our own.

I have watched a lot of Kikopup's youtube training videos and find they are great and they are working really well for us, but she talks about adding the cue, but you can rarely here what her cue is.

There just seem to be so many things that can be done in more than one direction or with more than one part of the body and I am running out of ideas.

Can anyone share the words they use for these sorts of things?

Much appreciated.

Mel

I tend to find the physical signal comes first and I usually find a verbal signal comes naturally or not at all. For example, Erik comes from behind through my legs when I walk like a cowboy and say "Where are you?" I didn't mean to make a verbal cue, but I kept saying it because I was never sure if he was going to turn up or not. We have "over!" to tell the dogs to jump over something, which is a nice, general cue so works well as a verbal. Also "Up-up!" for jumping onto something, and "back-back" for walking backwards. I direct with my hands, though. So the verbal cue tells them what to do and the physical cue tells them where to do it. If I always want them to do the same thing in the same place, I find a specific cue for it. It can be verbal or physical or both. I've been teaching Erik to walk backwards in a circle around my foot as I move it in a circle around him like I'm stirring him. I have no idea what I would call that, but that's okay because Erik responds to the foot movement. I've been trying to teach him the concept of "vault" to get him to put both feet on something while he's jumping over it rather than jumping clean over it. I want him to "over" or "vault" on my cue rather than what feels right to him at the time. It's hard, though! He is not entirely sure why his jumps get rewarded sometimes and not at others. I slowed it down and added a hand signal to suggest he put his front paws there, but although he follows the hand signal well, he hasn't put it together yet.

[Weasels]

I use verbal cues in teaching a behaviour but often fade them in favour of gestures, then sometimes re-use the verbal cues for other things

For touching with a certain paw i used 'left' and 'right' (my left and right) and would hold out the equivalent hand. Now I use left and right for running in a certain direction and the dog's know that whichever hand I hold out I want their paw on the same side. For us 'paw' means lift up the leg I'm touching for putting on a harness.

To get them on one side or the other I use 'heel' and expect them to go where I am pointing (thank you agility!). I use 'through' for going through my legs, but haven't done the pivoting one

One fun thing you can do once they understand raising their left and right paw is to introduce raising your left and right knee as you say the command, then fading out the command so that the dog will march in time with you. This was easy to teach but it's super cute and impresses people ;)

I like gestures over voice for a few reasons, I can subtly train/command my dogs without interuppting a conversation, and when kids are trying to command my dogs I can give sly gesture commands and the kid thinks they are training the dog

ETA: or the short version: what Corvus said Just make up commands that you can remember. I am the only one at agility that uses 'jump!' instead of 'over!' but the end result is the same

Edited October 5, 2011 by Weasels

[wuffles]

What I am thinking of is when we do things like touch with one paw or the other. I can use 'paw' for one paw, but what word do you use when you want them to use the other paw?

Ours are "paw" and "other paw" "Touch" means touch that with your nose.

And 'side' when I want her to come and stand by my left side, but what word to stand on my right side?

I use "heel" for heel position on the left hand side, I don't have a command for the right hand side. Some people I know use alternative words for heel like "close" or "space".

And what about things like weaving through my legs or pivoting around her front paws?

I do leg weaves just with my body language (if I take a big step with my leg, go under it!) and I also don't use a command for pivoting... you mean on a phone book, rear end awareness? I use this behaviour to get a proper heel position so her understand is if there is an object, try pivoting on it, into heel position if possible

I don't really teach much just for the sake of it anymore because I have so much to train for obedience and agility that I don't have time So training things in either direction or on both sides doesn't really happen I do use "spin" and "twirl" for spinning in either direction but to be honest she responds to the hand signal rather than the command on that one.

In conclusion I'd say just make up whatever you want! You can generally change it later if you have to.

[Mrs Rusty Bucket]

I use "through" for "go through my legs".

I try not to use the same word for different things but dogs do seem to get the context. My dog is beginning to understand what "out-over" means. But is starting to forget what "out the kitchen" means. Sigh.