Susan Garrett’s Hand Target: Dog Training Games Within Games

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A Hand Target is a dog training game that has many uses, and we love it for games within games.

A game within a game is when the primary reason for playing the game is disguised within the context of a much more simple game.

I'll give you an example. I can take any dog who knows a Hand Target and I can get them to line up very nicely at my side. Why do I care about that? Well, if I'm walking and my dog is facing me and maybe I need to open a door, so I can use my Hand Target in a very strategic way to get my dog at my side.

Likewise in the sport of dog agility, we need our dogs to sit at our side at the start line so that we can leave. Now, over the thousands of seminars that I've taught over my lifetime, I've had a lot of students who struggled getting their dog at their side, so I would teach them this simple trick. To the dog it looks like they're just doing a Hand Target and they love doing Hand Targets because it means ‘I might get a cookie’.

And all that you do, I'm going to just walk you through it right here. Let's say we want our dog to line up on our left side. You are going to present your dog your left hand but what you're going to do, with your feet together, you're going to keep your right foot planted, and you're going to just step back on your left foot. So, it's in line with where you were just standing.

You're going to extend your left hand back for the dog to touch it. They touch it, you drop a cookie to them back there. We're placing reinforcement in a place where we want them to go. And then you just step forward. When the dog steps forward, you quickly step back before they can get their butt moving out in front again. Quickly step back, put your hand way back there. They touch your hand with their nose, you drop the cookie back there.

You might do that three or four times and then instead of giving them the cookie back there, you bring your feet together, you look to your left and say “sit”. The dog was back there expecting their cookie, but now they're coming up here you give them their cookie in the sit position. The game within the game. They thought they were just doing Hand Targets. Lo and behold, you were teaching them ‘I need you to be at my side.’

Are you very familiar with the 2010 remake of the Karate Kid? So, it had Jackie Chan as Mr. Han and Jayden Smith played his student Dre. Now Dre was given this task to do where he had to take his jacket off in a certain way and he had to then drop it on the floor in front of him, then pick it up and hang it on a hook. And then take it off the hook, put it on himself a certain way, and then take it off and drop it on the floor and then pick it up and put it on the hook.

Now, Dre thought he was doing this exercise because he needed to learn about respect. That was what he was led to believe. That he was disrespecting Mr. Han by dropping his coat on the floor and so he was given this task. And every day he would come in and he thought he was there to learn kung fu because he'd got beaten up by some neighborhood kids and he would say, “What am I doing today Mr. Han?” And he’d say, “the coat.” And he would do this thousands and thousands of times until one day he had a meltdown.

He said, “I don't even think you know kung fu.” because of course he'd never seen Mr. Han do kung fu. And he said, “That's it. I quit.” And Mr. Han got him to come over and he told him, “pick up the coat.” Because he had thrown the coat on the floor again. So, he picked it up and as he was in the motion Mr. Han knocked it out of his hand and said, “Pick it up again.”

And when he was going through the motion, Mr. Han grabbed his arm, let him see how strong he'd become. Then he walked him through some kung fu sparring. This kid didn't even know he could do it. He could block his hits. He could duck out of the way because he'd learned all these skills by picking up the coat, putting it on, dropping it on the floor, and hanging it up. The game within a game. Although in that case, I don't know if Dre would say he was having a lot of fun.

So, for our dogs we make sure that the game within the game is still a lot of fun because it's transferring the value from the reinforcement into the game. The game within a game. The value of the food goes into the Hand Target. I'm sure I could put my hand out and my dogs would touch that hand upwards of 30, 40, 50 times. I've actually done it once and stopped my dog at a hundred times.

They would just touch the hand. Sometimes they'd look at me like, “Do you see what I'm doing here? I'm touching the hand”. They would just keep nose targeting my hand because the value of the reinforcement has gone into the hand because I use the Hand Target for so many different games within the game.

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