Matt,
I forgot to mention, when teaching the dog hand signs or ASL use only one or two word signs at a time that are clear. You can have your daughter stomp her foot to get the dogs attention, this will work both inside and out. But start inside, your dog will feel the stomp and learn to look towards the person it came from. For your daughter it will be the same as calling the dogs name.

An alternative to stomping your foot, or perhaps a transition from it, that works with my dog is to drag your foot backwards or forwards on a paved surface like a sidewalk so it makes a scraping sound. In fact, when I was teaching him automatic sits when heeling, everytime I'd stop walking I'd make a noise with my foot, like briefly dragging it for 1/2 a second to give him his warning that im stopping. Works like a charm <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

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An alternative to stomping your foot, or perhaps a transition from it, that works with my dog is to drag your foot backwards or forwards on a paved surface like a sidewalk so it makes a scraping sound......

I like that, Mike and Valerie. I have dogs who can hear now, but that little alert for automatic sit-when-stopping (in a heel-walk) seems like a really good idea to me, Mike. It's raining now, but I'm going to start with that tomorrow.

With Luna, my deaf dog, I was able to get her attention with a hard hand-clap. Something about the percussive quality of that partially-cupped-hand clap did reach her. But, of course, here we are talking about a hearing dog and a hearing-impaired handler, I believe, so it seems that a regular clap would work fine.

Good thread. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

BTW, the Barbara Woodhouse videos demonstrate very clear hand signals for the regular pet commands, regardless of her general rating as a trainer...........

WOW! Awesome feedback everyone!

I know the two dogs I'm interested in aren't renowned for their super intelligence, but I am assuming that mostly one, a few two, sign commands shouldn't be too difficult. And I agree with the comments that I should keep them pretty simple, and getting the dog's full attention on command is going to be the first step. I like some of your ideas on how to get that. My 2 year old daughter will probably be great at stomping her feet! LOL!!

I'm interested in the Corso and Dogo partly for their guardian/protection status. More as a deterrent (sp?), I'm not interested in formal protection training. Spending two overnights a week at work, it will be nice for my wife to have another tough guy at home when I'm not there. LOL Instead of formal protection training I would be more interested in a ridged obedience training. I'm actually going to visit a Corso breeder near us in two weeks, I can't wait!! I hope there everything I expect...

Thanks so much everyone for the feedback, and please don't stop here!

Matt

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WOW! Awesome feedback everyone!

I know the two dogs I'm interested in aren't renowned for their super intelligence, but I am assuming that mostly one, a few two, sign commands shouldn't be too difficult......

Oh, you have no need at all to stop at one or two signals. Now that I see you are definitely referring to informal pet-training, I can tell you that you will be just about unlimited. All but one of the deaf (or almost-deaf) pet dogs I helped with were breeds much lower on the IQ scale than, say, Poodles or Border Collies! They were as easy to train with signals as they would have been with verbal commands, had they not been deaf, IMO.

Just as with verbal commands, the key is consistency. You can devise any simple hand-arm motions you like for the commands, as mentioned earlier. You might think the cheat-sheet is silly, but I, at least <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/blush.gif" alt="" /> , found it vital at first when we were branching into more than three or four commands.

You might even want to look at an old Woodhouse video, which I took out from the local library, simply because her hand signals are extremely visible and clear.

You can definitely do this. I commend you! And what fun it will be, too, for everyone involved.

Hi Matt,

I'm a novice trainer with a GSD of 6 months old and I've been training him with hand signals since he was 14 weeks. He obeys me to the current level of his training equally with hand a verbal signals.

I definatley beleive it to be possible. Just get your hands on a couple of Ed's videos BEFORE you get your dog and watch them a few times.

If you get a German Shepherd from good lines (or just hit lucky with a good dog) I think you'll have a lot of fun training the dog and your kid will really enjoy it too.

I know nothing of the breeds you mention.

HTH

John

Connie,

Just to be sure I explained myself correctly when I said I wanted to use one or two sign commands, something like stop, then sit. Or how about commanding the dog to sit, then giving the command to eat? Sit, outside? Etc...

Matt

All of my puppies are started with verbal commands and hand signals. I have found it to be easy for them to make the transistion from one to the other.

The hand signals my rotties know are, sit, down, stay, come, fuss, stand, wait, speak, go, bring, take, carry, forward, back, over, spin, turn, send outs, and directions (right and left).
We do both schutzhund and AKC obedience (my girl is almost ready to start trialing for her SchH I & UD), so we start our puppies with both so that it is easier to switch back and forth as needed. We started out with just the basic commands that they would need for AKC obedience and we just kind of kept adding from there. It has been a lot of fun teaching them so many different things <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

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Just to be sure I explained myself correctly when I said I wanted to use one or two sign commands, something like stop, then sit.....

Oh, yes, I see. Check out Carol's post just below yours!

It's hard to explain hand signals in writing, but you absolutely can do combinations, as you are saying, and as Carol points out.

Even the Woodhouse videos, which show very simple commands (the one I saw, anyway), include combinations.

If you make up the signals, just make sure they are very distinct.

Seriously, there was no pet command that you would give a verbal command for that you could not give a hand signal for, and if your signals are clear and sharp, there is no reason one can't follow another.

Is this what you're asking?

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.....Is there a universal standard of hand signs or hand signals?.....

There is so much on the ‘net about sign commands for dog-training! I am surprised.

Here are a couple that look good:

http://www.handspeak.com/tour/byte/index-lit.php?byte=animalppl

http://www.ukwebpages.co.uk/deafdogs/signing.htm

http://www.deafdogs.org/training/signs.php#signs
(This one has a nice paragraph on teaching “Watch me.&rdquo

http://www.ukwebpages.co.uk/deafdogs/signing.htm

I do understand that it isn’t the dog who is hearing-impaired, but it seems that it doesn’t really matter who is, or even whether anyone at all is. The signing commands are fun and effective.