We humans communicate most of our thoughts and feelings through words, but we also use many nonverbal cues and signs to convey information.
When it comes to dogs, these visual tools take on a whole new level of power since combining them with verbal commands can bring incredible success in training your dog.
Hand signals for dogs are particularly helpful in noisy environments where your dog might struggle to hear you. Thus, they’re perfect for training deaf or hearing-impaired dogs.
In this guide, we’ll walk you through the benefits of hand signals, explain how to introduce them, and suggest some common commands to help you get started on the right path.
Why Use Hand Signals for Dogs?
Hand signals aren’t just a backup for verbal commands — they bring a whole set of advantages to your dog training toolkit. Here’s why they’re worth using.
Clear Communication
Think about some of the situations where verbal commands might lose their power, like a particularly noisy environment, for example.
In these types of situations, hand signals are the perfect alternative. As long as you have a clear line of sight between your dog and yourself, you can get them to do just about anything.
Versatility
Hand signals are useful in many scenarios, like when you’re in a park full of distractions, in a loud city center, or it’s the middle of the night, and you don’t want to wake up your spouse while telling your Labrador retriever to get their snout of the leftovers.
Bond Strengthening
Using hand signals requires your dog to pay closer attention to you, which naturally strengthens the bond between the two of you.
It’s a whole new layer of communication — and that can only be good. Who knows, maybe you can even develop your own secret language and use it to gossip about the rest of the family.
Training Flexibility
Hand signals are particularly helpful for dogs that are hard of hearing, elderly dogs losing their sense of sound, or even rescue dogs that might have grown up without verbal training.
Essentially, hand signals are as close to a universal human-to-dog language as we’ve got.
Common Dog Training Hand Signals
Let’s start with some of the most commonly used hand signals that every dog owner should know.
When you first start teaching these, it’s best that you accompany them with the verbal commands that your dog is already familiar with, as well as maybe a nice treat in your hand.
1. Sit
For most owners, this is the first command you ever teach your dog. You could probably say that it’s the easiest one.
When it comes to signaling it with your hand, you start with your palm at waist height, facing up. Then you raise your hand upward, almost like in a scooping motion, making the shape of the letter J.
2. Stay
This one is probably the most intuitive hand signal of all — it’s basically like being in charge of directing traffic.
Simply hold out your hand in front of you, with the palm open as if to say “stop.” Start by doing it right in front of your dog, and as time goes by, move further back to gradually increase your dog’s confidence and understanding of the signal.
3. Come
Once you’ve taught your pup the “stay” signal, it’s time to call them back to you. This one is fairly simple, as well.
You simply extend your arm in front of you, with the palm facing up, and then bring it toward your chest in a smooth, sweeping motion.
4. Down
Begin with your hand raised, palm open, and then slowly lower it towards the ground. This movement helps your dog associate the downward motion with lying down.
It helps if you have a treat in your hand or even on the floor in front of the dog — but only if you’re confident that they won’t go for it without your permission.
5. Heel
Even if you’ve never done this hand signal yourself, you’ve probably seen it dozens of times when passing by people walking their dogs.
It’s pretty straightforward — you just tap the side of your body once or twice until your pup aligns themselves and starts walking next to you.
Of course, some dogs are more hyper than others, and they might try to test your boundaries, so make sure to have your pup on a leash while teaching this one.
6. Wait
“Wait” is very similar to “stay,” but there are subtle differences in both the function of the signal and the motion that is used for it.
With this one, you again position your hand as the stop sign but hold it slightly elevated above your dog’s head. This is supposed to indicate a short break before moving on to new instructions.
Think of the “stay” command as the stop button and “wait” as the pause button.
7. Drop It
If your dog loves to hold onto things, such as toys, shoes, your kid’s homework, or important work documents, this is the hand signal to use. Point toward the floor or hold your hand out flat to ask them to release whatever they have in their mouth.
Practice pairing this with the verbal command “drop it” until they get the hang of it. You can try it using the Snoop Dogg song “Drop It Like It’s Hot,” but that’s entirely up to you.
8. Leave It
Ever heard of the phrase “better safe than sorry?”
Well, telling your dog to “leave it” is the safe way of keeping something out of their mouth, so this is a preventative method rather than a corrective one, such as “drop it.”
To perform it, just point to the object and then move your hand away.
Hand Signals for Dogs Final Thoughts
These eight hand signals are the most common ones, but you can build on them to try more complex ones.
Try combining multiple signals into one, or create your own signals for tricks that your dog already knows how to perform by following vocal commands. The only limit is your creativity.
