# expansion of touch commands



## Charleysmom (Dec 6, 2011)

I'd like to teach Charley some more things related to the touch command. He seems to really enjoy it but I'm not sure where to go with this.

He'll touch my hand, elbow, nose and ear on command. and he'll close the kicthen cabinet doors on command. it's so cute!

what else? any ideas?


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## davetgabby (Dec 29, 2007)

Emily at kikopups has numerous videos on targeting, here;s one


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## Charleysmom (Dec 6, 2011)

that is a fabulous video Dave. I had no idea where to go with it. it seems there is so much I can teach Charley from this point. thank you so much. :whoo:


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## krandall (Jun 11, 2009)

Lots of us who do Rally use this as a way to direct our dogs through complicate heeling maneuvers. Rally dogs are not held to QUITE the same level of perfection in heeling as formal obedience dogs, but they need to heel for much longer, and through more complicated sequences than even UD dogs do in formal obedience. While you are not allowed to "lure" your dog, (like even PRETENDING you are holding a cookie) it is perfectly OK to help (signal) your dog with an open hand though a tight 270 or 360 turn. This is taught exactly the way she does in this video.

Likewise, for agility, there are times that you have to be able to keep your dog RIGHT on your finger for discrimination tasks. (for instance, being able to direct them into one of two tunnel entrances set side by side) Again, this is a slight variation on the same theme.


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## Dory (Jan 4, 2012)

My husband and I play Quincy in the middle. He'll say Quincy's name from the bedroom, which we can see from the living room and he'll run over and touch his hand and likewise will come back and do it with me. I'm currently doing "high five" where he touches his nose and/or paws on my hands.
I've been looking for new things to do with this also, so I'm going to take a look at the video as well.


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## Charleysmom (Dec 6, 2011)

Charley loves the high five. It's so cute. 
I love the video on the s-turn through the legs. Charley and I are working on that one. That will defineitly take time. The videos are really helpful. Today we worked on Stop and will proceed from there to "down" in the middle of come. Might be very useful one day. 
It's suhc fun to train something new.


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## sprorchid (Mar 30, 2010)

My little guy is a certified therapy dog, and I'm a speech therapist in the public schools. My elementary school houses the district's programs for severely autistic children.
These students learn thru a methodology called discrete trials (DT), learn receptive and expressive language skills that way. So I used the touch command to teach my little Ollie to 'learn' pictures.

So say I want him to learn 'frog'. I have him touch the photo of 'frog' with his nose, while holding in my handin different locations, maybe in front of him, then higher/lower, left or right. after 3-5 trials, then I hold up another card, say 'snake'. but I still ask him to touch the 'frog'. then I change locations of both cards, and he has to track the location of frog. 

I should make a video to demonstrate. I also use this method to teach kids sight words.

so ollie faces me, cards face the students, so they can see what Ollie is 'touching'. the student who needs the practice will say 'Ollie touch frog!' and each time I change the location of the frog (and the other card I'm holding) the student says again, 'Ollie touch frog'. It's pretty cool.

I didn't watch the video, but the touch command is the basis for all movie and TV dog training. so the dogs learn to do a trick at a distance from the trainer. the dog learns to touch whatever you decide (object), and after the dog touches, say the object is 5 feet from you, you toss a treat near the dog, so they get reinforced near the object they touched, and then you can do other commands at a distance.

It's all pretty cool.


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## Charleysmom (Dec 6, 2011)

I'm not sure I understand. Are you saying your dog can actually distinguish between the pictures?
The videos are great and I'm so happy to be learning more things to do with "touch". We're now learning s turns through my legs. At first I got Charley through my legs with touch and then we used a lure and now we're decreasing the lure and about to give it a command. 
Dave, thanks again for the videos.


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