Hand Signal for "Stand"

[DanL]

For those of you who teach hand signals, what do you use for stand?

So far we have:

Sit- hand starts at side, comes up bending at elbow, palm up. Like curling a dumbbell.

Stay- palm out in front like a stop sign, or, if at a heel, palm in front of dog.

Down- hand starts high, palm facing dog, moves down towards your side.

Come- hand starts at side, comes up and bends at the elbow like covering your heart for pledge of allegiance.

These were all mastered long ago, but we never worked on a stand from a sit or down position.

 

[IliamnasQuest]

My signals are similar to yours. For utility obedience, the stay and stand signals are close to the dog; the down, sit and come signals are at a distance so that's how I tend to teach them to my dog.

My stay signal is usually with the dog in heel position and it's done with my left hand dropped down before the dog's eyes and then away.

My stand signal is also usually with the dog in heel position and usually starting from a sit (although they can do it from a down, too). I use my RIGHT hand, across my body and in front of the dog's nose. My dogs are taught to stand without moving their front feet forward - they kick the back legs out to stand instead of moving forward.

My sit and down signals are pretty much what you describe, both done with the right arm. My come signal is done with the left arm. This gives the dog an added cue when doing these at a distance since the only "moving forward" command is done with a different arm.

And my finish command (return to heel position) is a simple swipe of the hand toward the side I want them to move around (they learn both a left and right finish).

Melanie and the gang in Alaska

 

[RD]

My signals for Dakota are the same as yours. For stand, (if in heel position) I swing my hand in front of him (like the stay command) and flick my wrist upwards. If he's in a stay and I'm doing signal exercises, I extend my right arm at the elbow and do the wrist-flick.

 

[bubbatd]

My stand was with arm starting at my side , an upward motion with palm up .

 

[DanL]

Cool, thanks! I 1st had to learn the German work, and now the hand signal, lol! My team lead at work's wife is from Germany. He gave me every word I wanted.

I've been working on "puppy pushups" with him- sit-down-sit-down, then a recall, and a heel, without saying anything. Now we're teaching stand which we never did before. I'm using a food lure with my right hand and then a gentle lift up under the flank to urge him up, then give him a stay and reward. I think it'd be easier to teach him out of motion, since he's already standing, and give him the command and have him stop but not sit or down. My instructor wanted me to use my left had for the lure but he's too long to be able to reach back and urge him up that way. It definitely doesn't work on Daisy that way, she's way too long.

 

[corgipower]

My hand signals are the same as Melanie's.

As for teaching the stand, it sounds like you're doing it the same way I do. There are some dogs who learn it better doing it out of motion, but for many I have seen that to be more difficult. although that might be because they already knew the moving sit and moving down, so they didn't know they shouldn't do one or the other of those.

I typically teach the stand in conjunction with teaching sit and down, so the dog learns all three static positions at one time. It's not uncommon though for the stand to be the most difficult of the three. They don't get that they aren't allowed to move their feet. It really ends up coming down to just a lot of repetition.

 

[IliamnasQuest]

I used to find the stand the most difficult for the dogs I was training, but I switched around my training and have found now that the dogs take to stand really easily.

I don't teach sit for a long time. I start with stand and down and I teach the dogs how to down from a stand and then stand from a down. The nice thing about this is that their feet never move, just their bodies do. And then I teach the concept of stay, and we work on heeling and retrieving and then somewhere along the line (when the heeling is ready for it) I teach a sit.

It used to be that I taught sit first, and then down, and then stand. The dogs always had more problems when I did it in that order. Now it seems completely natural for my dogs to stand and sit is always easy to teach later on.

Works for me, anyhow! *L*

Melanie and the gang

 

[DanL]

That makes a lot of sense Mel. Unfortunately, Gunnar has been trained "traditionally", with sit being the 1st thing taught. I think he'll pick up on stand pretty quickly, a few reps a day and he'll get it.

 

[corgipower]

interesting melanie. i'll have to make a note of the idea for the next puppy.