Hi all, I've seen quite often on here people mentioning that they train 'touch'. As far as i understand it this is when you ask your pup to touch your hand with their nose - is this correct? Can someone let me know if they've found this training useful, and what they use it for please? thank you so much Lorraine
Yes, I use this with Pongo. It was one of the first things he learned. I find it really useful as (a) an easy game; (b) a way of getting his attention when he's over-interested in something else; (c) a fall-back for when recall fails (he often chooses not to come when called, but he knows that "touch" gets nice treats so it works). It is a good game that can be quite impressive (he will jump HIGH in the air, or run through my legs, or whatever, to touch my hand) and that other people - like my grandchildren - can learn to play with him very quickly. We also used it when I started taking him to agility classes as a way of establishing his focus on me (the environment was very very exciting and full of interesting smells, so this was a useful in getting him to ignore those and pay attention to me with an easy game that he knew very well.)
Yup, also called hand targeting. Super useful tool. As Rosie says, it's an easy game they learn very quickly and it's easy to increase arousal for it so it becomes hugely rewarding in itself. It's a great indicator of how worked up they are; if they can't do a hand target, they can't do anything. It is good for starting to build focus in an arousing environment - start easy and build from there. It's useful for breaking an intense focus on something else. And it's really good for positioning a dog, so, if you want your dog on a raised platform and you haven't yet taught "on", you can use a hand target to get them there instead. Or, to position a heel. Or a middle. If you teach a target to a target stick (normally a foam ball on a stick) then you can get that position at distance, too. Yup, it's very useful indeed.
I find touch really useful to get my puppy to focus - I have used it at the Vets when I have asked her to get on the scales. A few 'touches' and she stays still. Calming her when the vet nurse has wanted to check her over. Distracting when needed when out and about. Just for fun as a game. She will now give quite a firm touch to the hand instead of the licky touches she used to do .
Does anyone use/train an extended hand touch? How do you add duration? Coco gets frustrated if he doesn't get the reward for the quick touch he knows - he'll try it a couple of times then try something completely different.
Yes Red got frustrated when I added in duration. She is now learning to do it longer 'cos the treats not forthcoming. I think it's just practice. I found Red licking my hand a lot which I didn't want so I left 'touch' alone for a week or so and then came back to it. She's accepted it now and will give a firmer touch if I don't reward for the first one.
Wh When we started to add duration it ended up for the first few times where it became a double touch with the nose. She got frustrated at first, but that wore off after she realised what we where doing. She then started to merge the two and we got a long touch. Then ot went gradually from a long touch (2combined as above) with another then naturally merged. After about the fourth week we got it up to a decent amount that allows me to distract her enough if we are out to then do something else. I am happy with the 20-30sec that we can do. Maybe try this?
i'll get back to it, carefully - I don't want to break his enthusiasm for "touch" - cheers for the pointers.
Here is a Nando Brown video on building duration: I don't ask for duration in my hand touch, as it's not something I find necessary. I think that I screwed up my marking when teaching the touch to W&S and my click was a touch late, so I ended up marking them moving away from the hand after the touch. If I were to do it again and wanted that focus on duration, I would mark a lot earlier, to reward the movement towards the hand rather than the brief touch. I reckon you could use reverse luring to extend your duration if you wanted to.
Thanks for posting Nando @snowbunny I definitely rushed Charlie's touch so he can be a little confused. I am going to start again using Nando's technique as this would be useful for him in all sorts of situations. I only use 'touch' for Hattie if she has gone too far ahead of me, so I stop she belts back to me, touch/treat. I don't need it for anything else. Very useful video. x
Indeed. I've been following that video by him since it was posted on here a few weeks ago and find it great, I'm at the bit about building duration, always where I start to crumble. Cass went through a frustrated phase but I persisted with only rewarding the touchs I wanted, mouth closed and a strong connection. I don't mind a little lick after. It is such a useful thing, I'm been doing as @charlie suggests on walks to help with the focus on me and it's helped enormously, especially combined with about turn walk. @snowbunny , do you have any advice regarding if she doesn't respond because something else is drawing her attention?
Like all cues, you want to start it in a low-distraction environment and only give the cue when you're as certain that you can be that she will respond. Gradually introduce controlled distractions, taking your training criteria back a few levels each time and then building them up. It's interesting teaching this to dogs that don't know how to learn. It's so easy with excitable puppies and for dogs who already understand rewards-based training, but I started it with my sister's 7-yr cocker, who hasn't been formally taught anything. It was a real lesson (for me!) in patience and breaking things down into tiny steps. Then, when you think the dog has reached a CER, he suddenly loses understanding again. It's hard! Similarly with all the rescue dogs; other than the kennel environment not being ideal for training, these dogs just don't know how to learn through R+ training, so that's the biggest lesson they have to learn.
I just watched an Absolute Dogs / Training Academy video about it - @edzbird look at "Nose Touch Intensify". You'll see Lauren's BC jabs repeatedly, but Poppy the WCS has a prolonged hold - with a reverse lure
I had this problem with Lucky, that I didn't get the prolonged touch on my hand, and he resorted to trying to lick/bite my hand so I gave up on it. As a separate exercise, I taught him to put his head inside a cone with duration, and then generalised this to other objects - it's one of AbsoluteDogs naughty but nice games for muzzle training. He was getting tired during a training session, so I practiced some things he knew well, and when I asked for him to do touch, he kept contact with my hand - exactly the way I trained with the cone and other objects. It was pure coincidence, and clearly the generalising worked, and ever since I've had no problems with an extended touch. So, if you carry on having problems, you could try teaching a prolonged touch with another object, and once he's got that, ask him to touch your hand in the same training session. I think it worked because it wasn't changing his expectations - but teaching a skill from scratch in a different context, and then once he was good at it, accidentally adding it to the touch cue.
Yes, I have been doing that, it's just that today we walked in a public place for the first time, at one point she was looking down into the valley below where some men were putting in fence posts, there was no way she could have got there even if she wanted and it was probably half a mile away, she was very focused and I tried a handtouch just to see -- nothing.
Yup, this is one of the useful things about hand targeting, I think - it is so easy and such a fun game (usually) that it's a great indicator of threshold. If a dog can't hand target (as long as it's been taught well!), he can't do anything.
We use TOUCH with our Guide Dog pups as part of their clicker training to build confidence, and once they've mastered it we do a number of things with it. If we find an object our pup is hesitant to approach or hasn't seen before, we can use TOUCH for him to understand its not scary. And we can then use TOUCH to get them focused on us if they get distracted bu something. We practise with a "moving" touch - I walk backwards offering alternating hands from at my side or behind my back with "TOUCH", and at the end a predetermined distance he gets a click-treat. I use the same exercise to weave through cones in clicker class. Riggs LOVES "TOUCH"! Its one of his favourite cues!
