If you’ve been taking classes with us, you may have heard of something called a Hand Target. A hand target in its simplest form is when a dog touches the palm of your hand when you hold it out.

For background on hand targets and why you should you teach it to your dog, refer to part 1 of this article.

Today, we wanted to share three hand target skills you can teach your dog at home.

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Basic Nose to Hand Target

This is the simplest form of the hand target involving the dog touching their nose to your open palm.

Steps to teach it to your dog:

1. Hold out your palm a few inches from your dogs face.
2. Wait for them to investigate. At the exact moment their nose makes contact with your hand, mark the behavior with “YES!” and reward them with a treat.
3. Continue to practice this until your dog targets your hand immediately when you hold out your palm. Once this happens you are ready to add a verbal cue like “Touch!”

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Chin Rest Target

In this version of a hand target, your dog learns to rest their head in your hand. This can be useful for grooming, inspecting ears and eyes, and can help build your bond.

Steps to teach it to your dog:

1. Hold out your hand to the dog, this time with your palm facing up.
2. Mark any instance of your dog approaching the hand with their chin. When rewarding, feed the treat in a position where your dogs head is resting on your hand.
3. Repeat this until the dog puts their chin on top of your palm every time you hold it out.
4. You can continue to increase the criteria for this by waiting to mark until the dog is resting the weight of their head on your hand.

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Nose Bridge Target

In this version, the dog learns to put the bridge of their nose into an arch you make with your hand. This is great for brushing your dogs teeth, looking at mouth injuries, or for the kennel cough vaccine that is administered by nose.

Steps to teach it to your dog:

1. Make an arch with your hand and hold it out in front of your dogs face.
2. Mark any effort your dog makes to move towards that hand with “YES” and reward them with a treat delivered through the arch.
3. As the dog gets more and more comfortable approaching the arch wait for them to put their nose in independently before marking and rewarding the behavior.
4. Once the dog will put their nose through the arch independently you can add duration to it by feeding more treats for staying there, and begin to accustom them to looking at their teeth while in the position.
5. Go slow with this to ensure it is a positive experience for your dog!

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Try these hand target skills with your dog at home and let us know how you make out. Regardless of what you use them for now, there is no doubt that developing a solid hand target will likely be useful in the future!

By Kelsey Merritt, Full-Time Trainer at The Dog Classroom