[NAGDU] What is the "Touch" Command Used For?

[Tami Jarvis]

Dani,

For me, the "touch" is a really important foundation behavior, so it's 
the first thing I teach while I'm teaching the dog to associate a click 
with reward. I can then use touch to teach the early versions of just 
about anything else. I continue to use it to ensure I have the dog's 
attention, to find out where the dog's nose is, to direct the nose and 
so forth. It's also handy for teaching find at first. I just put my two 
fingers (the hand signal for touch) on the object I want the dog to 
learn, then click and treat when the dog touches it. I also use touch a 
lot to redirect from sniffing and so forth. Dogs tend naturally to watch 
a human's hands to find out what the human wants, so that makes it just 
really handy in a lot of situations. Most of my hand signals are 
modifications of the signal I use for touch, since the dog's nose 
follows those first two fingers.

I also use touch to teach the dogs to show me objects by name and so 
forth. It can be a fun game when we're hard up for entertainment and 
useful when I drop stuff.

hth,

Tami

On 07/04/2016 11:30 AM, Dani Pagador via NAGDU wrote:
> Hi, Everyone.
> I'm looking through old mail and cleaning my NAGDU folder out. Saw a
> msg re the "touch" command and how to teach it. What is this used for?
>
> Thanks,
> Dani, wanting to see if she can teach her old dog a new skill
>
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