There are many situations where it will prove beneficial to have hand signals for dog training as well as voice commands. You may be in a noisy environment where your dog is hearing lots of other sounds at the same time and your voice may be harder to pick up. Your dog may not be able to hear as well as he once did. Your dog may not respond to voice commands as good as he would hand signals. Hand signals for dog training is a great way to make training go faster and your dog more responsive.

Point#1 - Have You Ever Been Told To Do It Right The First Time?

The answer I'm sure is who hasn't? But who does? You will now after reading this. Teach your dog the sit command first and everything else will fall into place. Grab a treat in your closed hand, palm to the sky and hold it nose level to your dog. Move the treat slowly to back of your dog's head.

As your dog starts to look up it forces his bottom to start dropping to the ground. This is when you want to issue the command. Say "Sit" in a firm tone of voice. Once he does, give him the treat and shower him with praise. Keep doing this entire process until he can sit on cue.

Once he does, repeat the whole process but leave out the treat. Once he can do that on cue repeat the whole process but leave out the verbal command and just use the hand signal. Shower him with praise once he can perform it on cue. Once he has mastered this the two of you are ready to move on.

Point#2 - Play Into His Natural Behavior With This One

Have you ever noticed how your dog can be in the sit position minding his business and then just stretches his two front legs out and lays down? This is natural for him. This is what you want to imitate only you want him to do it on command.

99% of the time a trainer will follow up teaching a dog to sit with teaching a dog to lay down. I've already explained why in the paragraph above. Since you have already trained your dog into mastering the sit command on cue by hand signal that makes teaching him to lay down a breeze.

Make your dog sit by giving your hand signal. Just like you did before grab a treat in your closed hand, palm to the sky and hold it nose level to your dog. Only this time, begin moving your hand to the floor. This forces your dog's head & neck to begin to drop. When your hand is near or at the floor say "Lay Down" in a firm voice.

Your dog should be lying flat on the ground on his belly at this point. Once all the way down give him the treat and shower him with praise. Keep doing this entire process until he can lie down on cue.

Once he can perform the command on cue, repeat the whole process but leave out the treat. Once he can do that on cue repeat the whole process but leave out the verbal command and just use the hand signal. Shower him with praise once he can perform it on cue with just the hand signal.