Teaching a Touch Behavior

“Touch” is a versatile behavior that can be used to help keep your dog’s focus when distractions are around and as a tool to help teach more advanced behaviors. This is also a great behavior to ease your dog into positive reinforcement training as it requires them to think about what you are asking.

Tips for Training Success

Have your dog perform a few easier behaviors such as sit and down before teaching a new behavior.

• This gives your dog a chance to get into training mode with some easy wins.

Remember to work in a quiet, distraction-free environment when training a new behavior.

Steps for Teaching “Touch”

Decide on a hand gesture that you would like to use as your touch cue (make sure it isn’t too close to other cues like shake or paw). Here are some that are commonly used:

• An open palm (this is what I will be using)

• A closed fist

• Two fingers

With your dog focused on you, present your decided upon cue approximately 2 inches from your dog’s nose. Do not use a verbal cue at this point.

When your dog touches their nose to your hand, say your secondary reinforcer word that you chose last week.

• Dogs are naturally curious so your dog will more than likely sniff your hand. If they do not, try rubbing something interesting on your hand to encourage them to sniff your hand.

Give your dog a treat.

Once your dog understands that the hand cue means to touch with their nose to your hand, you can add a verbal cue.

• I will be using "touch" as a verbal cue, but you can choose any word you would like.

When your dog really has the touch behavior down, you can begin moving your hand farther away, switching hands, and really having fun with it.

Keep training sessions short (about 5 minutes) and do multiple training sessions throughout the day.