Have you taught your pup how to "touch"?
What is touch? A cue to get your dog to touch his nose to your hand. Touch can be a useful foundation for many more advanced behaviors and gives you a way to capture the dog’s attention and direct his movements. For example, coming toward you to touch your hand is a great start on recall and touching someone’s hand is a nice alternative to jumping on them. For a shy dog, teaching a dog to touch someone can be a low pressure way of interacting with a novel person as long as the dog is experiencing very low levels of fear and demonstrate a desire to interact. Do not use this practice with dogs experiencing moderate or high levels of fear or who are seeking to avoid interactions with people.
How to teach it.
Step 1. Be prepared with your bait bag, high value treats and your clicker.
Step 2. Present your hand a couple of inches away from the dog’s face. Mark and treat for any interest he shows, whether an actual touch of his nose to your hand or just looking at your hand. After the first few times, click only for a full nose touch.
Step 3. Repeat this until the dog reliably touches your hand.
Step 4. Now add the verbal cue. Before presenting your hand, say, “touch” and then put your hand down. (Be sure to pause for a second between the cue and reaching down.)
Step 5. When the dog responds reliably to the verbal cue, begin to increase the distance of the dog’s head from your hand by a few inches.
Step 6. Keep increasing the distance little by little. Also move your hand to different positions, higher, lower, toward the side of the dog’s head—and try the exercise in different areas.
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