Hello everyone,

After searching the message archive, and looking browsing the training article titles I've arrived here with a question. To what degree can hand signals be used with dogs? Is there a universal standard of hand signs or hand signals? My wife and I communicate with our daughter by using American Sign Language (ASL) and I was wondering if when we get a dog next spring (either an Argentine Dogo or Cane Corso) how involved we can get my daughter. For example, the command "sit" in ASL is done by tapping your index and middle finger of your right hand on the index and middle finger of your left hand. Can signs like that be effective with dogs? I've read a bit about raising deaf dogs, and they are obviously being trained with hand signals only. Any insight would be great!

Matt

I do not see what would prohibit the dog from responding to hand signals. The dogs I have trained for advanced obedience were taught to respond to visual/non-verbal commands. I would start by putting a verbal cue on the behavior and than add the hand signal as well as the verbal cue when requesting the behavior.

A good site of deaf dogs which might have some training insight is http://deafdogs.org

Good luck!

Ingrid

Hi Matt, sounds like your going to do a good job with whatever dog you get. I've met one cane corso in my life and have never met a argentine dogo, i guess my question is, what is the appeal to either dog? I'm just curious, and i'm not saying they're good or bad choice because i don't know squat about them, but then again i'm biased, i don't think they make a better dog than a gsd <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />, AL

Matt,
We use hand signals only in AKC obedience at the Utility level, but it's considered advanced work, to be sure - very few dogs are able to function at that level.

You'd likely have trouble with the small and precise motions of ASL for a dog to see them easily, so you'd be better off use larger hand motions for the commands.

And not to rag on your choice of dogs there, but neither of your choices are considered geniuses in the canine world. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/blush.gif" alt="" />
You'd make your chances a lot better on what you plan to do by using one of the smarter breeds, like a Border Collie, Poodle, or even a GSD ( I think there are some smart ones of those out there.... )

Good luck with whatever your choice, I wish you success!

Matt-
I have trained some Labs who will take lots of hand signals at distances up to a few hundred yards. If the dog is bright and wants to learn you should be able to teach it a number of signals. One thing you might want to think about is that you need to have the dogs attention to give it a hand signal. If field trials we use a whistle. When the dog hears it he sits facing us and waits for direction. I dont know how you want to incorporate your daughter but you might first think of an audible signal that she could give the dog so that he knows it is time to pay attention and await direction from her. Just a thought.

Matt, one of my daughters is an ASL interpriter. Her first dog, a Border terrier/JRT was trained with ASL all the basic sit, down, come, stay commands just for the fun of it. I agree with Will that your choice of breed isn't the best, but my daughter's little terrier was fantastic. Not only the dog, but I could/can converse with my hearing grandkids when they are less than a year old. They could/can ask for milk, hungry, more, mom, etc.
Some years ago, one of my Kerry Blues, with
a UD, was really easy to work with after he became deaf with old age. We made up a lot of stuff, but if he was looking at me, he understood as well as any hearing dog. Using a combination of the AKC signals and the ASL might just do the trick with your dog. Go for it!

I dunno about ASL, but my dog will sit/down/stay/come with hand signals, he's not perfect on em because I don't focus on em in training, but I use them when doing obedience with him. Down is me pointing 2 fingers at the ground quickly, stay is my palm facing him, sit is 2 fingers making kind of a half circle motion, come is 2 fingers with my thumb sticking out pressed against my right leg, jump is patting my stomach, jump over stuff is making an upward sweeping motion with my hand. He seems to understand what I'm asking him to do, so I have no doubt that a dog can be trained with non-verbal commands - but I can't comment on the ability to do with ASL or your breed choices though, I've only ever done it with my GSD <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

 Quote:

To what degree can hand signals be used with dogs?

To the nth degree, in my personal experience. It's unlimited. I had a dog come to me already deaf (who just died a year ago after years with me), and someone had trained her pretty well with simple signals (palm forward for "stay," sweeping toward myself with the arm for "come," pointing to the ground beside me for "heel," and so on; I discovered this by accident after several weeks with her, and experimented to find out what else she knew, so there may have been a lot more I just didn't know she knew).

She was deaf from repeated ear infections, so she led me into canine nutrition and allergy research, but she also taught me that training without verbal commands, for a pet, is virtually unlimited as long as s/he can see you.

I don't know about sport training; we didn't try that together. But there was no regular pet-type command she couldn't be taught, with no verbal commands at all.

I've helped with other deaf dogs since Luna, too; it actually doesn't seem to be any harder for the dog to learn than voice commands are. I don't know ASL, but I made up the commands. I learned to keep a little cheat-sheet so I didn't fail to be consistent.

It's a fascinating and rewarding thing to do for you and the dog, IMO. I hope you decide to do it. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" /> I can't see why it would be different for the handler to be hearing-impaired than when it's the dog.

Matt,
I think it is great you are willing to look into this for your daughter. I agree with Will about keeping the hand signs large enough. ASL moves very fast and the dog will need to be able to see the repeated signs. I do know ASL and my daughter is an interp. I use some ASL signs in almost all the training I do. More because I've use ASL talking to people.
How old is your daughtet?
I noticed the breeds you have thought of to get are pretty strong and powerful dogs and can be a handful.
GSD or even a Doberman might be an easier dog to train. Just a thought.
Poodles are very smart, just high maint. in grooming area Unless your daughter is old enough as not to be too ruf wiht the smaller toy size a standard be good.

not that i can really help much but..... it is much easier to teach hand signals and have the dog understand them then it is to retrain a dog to use no hand signals when that's what they have understood for 7 years..... i have always taught just basic house pet ob classes and to all my students i allow hand signals and encourage them... but when i decided to try my hand at BH competetions it took me 1 year to teach my 7 yr old gsd to respond off voice only... wow was that a tough year but she did learn it..... and passed her BH with 94 points.....she went foose instead of sitting directly in front when hubby did a recall from the platz...