Are Hand Signals Outdated?

[Star and Goldie]

We had our first training session with our trainer today. I'm just getting to know her and how the program works so there isn't much to speak of just yet but one thing that really stuck out to me is that she doesn't use hand signals. I told her that I use hand signals and that Goldie already knows several. I just wanted to be sure that I wasn't going to have to unteach those hand signals and she said "well we don't use hand signals here"

I saw past discussions on hand signals and found several resources online about how/why they are so great. Most of the discussions on here were at least 2 years old so my questions is... are hand signals outdated? Should I stop that method? I still do the verbal cue, of course, but I've always accompanied it with a hand signal.

[Amy, Cubbie & Ollie]

hmmmm....I must have gotten confused.  But I know that there were specific hand signals now I will just have to go figure out why.

[Amy, Cubbie & Ollie]

ok I just found it on th AKC site.  There are 3 different level.  Novice and Open can use voie or signals.  Utility is signal only and no voice commands.

[Amy, Cubbie & Ollie]

you should bust out some German.  it will intimidate the rest of the class.  lol

[Amy, Cubbie & Ollie]

the advanced obedience class that we took was taught by our trainer that did obedience trials with his own dogs and believe it or not this class was Petsmart class so it was really cool to be working in the store training your dog with no words.  The people shopping would just sit there and stare at us.  Most people think that Petsmart has crappy obedience training but we really lucked out with our guy. I actually don't even know why he was working there when he could have easily opened his own business.

[Joanne ~ Spud*]

It just goes to show you, choose your trainer by his titles not by where he/she works.  Choose them as an individual that is accomplished.

As, you can go to a really good place and they stink.  Where a trainer has no accomplishments. 

[Amy, Cubbie & Ollie]

there were 2 other trainers there and most of the people took classes with those people because they were happy happpy trainers that always used treats.  Our guy was serious and down to business.  He said he liked it better that way because he only got the people that were serious about training their dogs and not "those others".

[Star and Goldie]

aww I just had a super cute visual of that :)

[Amy, Cubbie & Ollie]

the tap for look could be very useful.  I hadn't heard that one before.

[Ronna, Murphy & Wilson]

The trainer I work with says the same thing Sandy. She says that because dogs communicate with each other through body language and they understand body language better than words. My boys know both.

Anne, I think it is important for them to respond to both, in the emergency Come command scenario of course you would need verbal. You can't ask a dog to do anything if you don't have their attention. In other distracting situations I will give my boys the verbal "look" command and then use hand signals.

Hand signals also become fun if you do any trick training.  I like the "thumbs up" for sit.  Because your dog doesn't know english you can also assign any word to any command that you want.  You can teach your dog that Taco means sit if you want to...LOL.

[Star and Goldie]

YES!!! Taco means sit... that is priceless!!! (Also, side note, tacos are my favorite food!)

[Amy, Cubbie & Ollie]

lol.  I have started using the word "queso" instead of "come".  They stopped responding to come but come running every time I take cheese out of the fridge so I went with it.  :)

[Star and Goldie]

Tacos... queso... I'm starting to like where this conversation is going *stomach growls*