Cassie is 11months old now and as per some recommendations re holding her dummy on bringing it to me, and also to help in high excitement situations (is that right?) I've started to teach her hand touch. Today it suddenly dawned on me that when she was a small crocopup I taught her to let me touch her without biting my hands by doing Stage 4 of "stop puppy biting 2 on the Labrador site. EG, reward for not touching my hands. It is some time since I've done it but here I am now asking for her to touch my hand for a reward. Am I being unfair to her?
If only we had a crystal ball and could decide what we wanted to train from Day 1 with our pups, it would help[ prevent confusion later on. That said if you haven't used the reward for not touching hands for months it might well be pretty much defunct now anyway - use it or lose it, or behaviours need reinforcement to maintain them. I would just put a hand out and wait for Cassie to touch and C&T. If she is reluctant to touch your hand to begin with C&T for any slight movement towards your hand to shape the desired behaviour. She'll soon work it that it's good to move towards your hand and then touch it for a tasty treat . As with all training once she's touching your hand you need to up the stakes so add a second or two of duration. Then change the picture slightly and stand up/move your hand to the other side anything which makes a small change and wait for her to touch then C&T and off you go ready to introduce a cue not forgetting to say 'Touch' or whatever your preferred cue is before moving your hand for her to touch. If she doesn't move to touch just take a step back and start afresh the next day
I don't think it's being unfair, I find dogs to be pretty flexible with us changing things, and often they are used to us changing criteria as we build up behaviours. At the moment, I'm changing something that I taught L. I taught him to go through my legs from behind and sit in front of me, but now I've decided to teach him to heel in between my legs. He was a bit confused to begin with, but he quickly worked it out. If she's a bit reluctant, I'd be extra generous with the rewards to encourage her.
You just have to get a hand touch properly on cue. After all, even when you've trained her to touch your hand you don't want her doing it all the time! How annoying would that be? You only want her to do it when you give her a cue to do it. So all training that involves something going on cue involves rewarding for not performing the action (as part of the process).
@Jojo83 , @lucky_dog , @JulieT Thank you all for your replies. I am following the method in The Labrador Handbook which builds it up gradually. Yes I suppose they do get used to changing criteria as they mature. She stopped biting my hands probably 5 months ago, so it must be this long since I've done it, touching her is not a problem now. And of course when I think about it it is a quite different way of presenting your hand. And yes it would indeed be annoying if she were to do it all the time!
