hand signs for dogs??

ok as may of you know we got our baby staffie and we are teaching her the basics she is learning really quick bless her
i was wondering if any of you teach hand signs with your comands? and if so what are they as i dont have any idea which ones we could use, we have taught her to "sit" and "wait" with our voices but would also like to use hand signs as well as our voices
so any ideas would be great

this may be quite hard to explain!

we try to use as many hand signals as we can with indie, tho the more we give new commands, the more i struggle to think up new signals!

For sit, i have my hand infront palm up and just raise my fingers up vertical.
For lay i raise my arm in the air. the reason for that is if she is on the other side of the road for whatever reason she will be able to see my hand signal above moving objects, and also if i have a hand signal pointing toward the floor she might see it as a come!

For Come, i have my arm coming from the side and ending up on my chest like 'hand on my heart' type thing, which i saw on cell dogs, hehe.

For twist, i just twist my finger in a circle.
For paw, i offer my hand
For wait or stay i hold my hand up like a policemen does to stop cars with a flat hand.

thats about all the hand signals i use at the moment.
Would be interested to know what anyone uses for other commands.
what does everyone else use for: heel, go play, bring back the toy, drop the toy, stop when seeing another dog across the field etc etc

Yep, every command has it's own signal, does not matter as long as you and everyone uses the same one.
My basic ones are
Sit - right fist to left shoulder.
Down - point to floor
Stand - extend arm with index finger at the height of the dogs head.
Come - both arms spread in greeting
Stay - palm of hand pushed towards dog
Wait - index finger raised
then it depends on the work required, mine is in the show ring so needs to be discreet, as possible, and are for strange things like lift your tail, move your foot and don't sniff.

hi thordell well we were thinking of showing saffy but we are not sure yet as she is only a baby but if we did im sure we would need the hand signs and even if we didnt show her i think it would be a good thing for her to learn just as my little girl learns it at school

max knows quite a few hand signals and i can get him to sit, lie down and stay all without uttering a word.

Thing with hand signs is you can use them at a distance and I often use the hand sign and not vocal signal even with the dog in front of me, it works just as well, most important thing is to make sure the dog understand what it is you want of them and I find that clicker training is the easiest and quickest way to achieve this no need to talk the rewards do it for you.

I'm another hand-signal fan. We don't speak dog and our dogs don't speak human but they're really good at body language - signals are just an extension of that. They're also 'emotion free' which is good if you are tired/cross/if the pup is being a b*****r.

We also use a whistle (as well as crouch with outstretched arms) for 'come'. It carries over a really long distance and again is totally neutral....the dog doesn't pick up any anger/desparation like it could with a verbal command We found it really easy and effective from day one of braving 'off lead' outside. (we trained her to it at home/garden - whistle, come, treat at all sorts of odd times)

i have been thinking of getting a whistle. is it a doggy one or a normal one hil

Doggy one, very slimline, hang it round your neck on a lanyard - looks very professional. It makes a nice shrill sound, doesn't blast/offend humans but the dogs seem to pick it up well. D hears it whilst she's racing in the dunes with the sound of the sea and the wind against it.

Go for it - they only cost about £1.50

oo i have a dog whistle. actually i have 2 cos i keep losing them.lol.

katy u can get them from ur local pet shop