A love letter to Touch

Single handedly the best command ever invented. If  I could only teach a dog one command for the rest of its life, touch would be the winner. Since we are on the internet, and no one can see my crazy eyes at the moment, I will do my best to eloquently explain my immediate bias towards this beautiful command.

Imagine your two-month-old puppy on his first day home. What’s the first thing you’re going to teach them? As a puppy raiser, the very first thing I do when I bring a puppy home is teach them the touch command. Let me elaborate, by “teaching” I do not mean the pup masters the command or it’s the only command I teach. I mean this is the first command lured and rewarded. Their name and sit are also taught for default purposes. However, two-month-old puppies only have a few things on their minds which involve sleeping, eating, going potty, playing, and destroying everything in their wake! Playing and exploring as puppies do, is very crucial to their brain development and the way they interact with the world. Interacting with the world will most likely involve their mouths because they do not have opposable thumbs. Now when puppies explore with their mouths that means they’re going to get into things they should not be getting into and they’re going to sneak away from you when they should not be sneaking away from you. Thusly getting into places that may or may not want to do murders to them, knowing their name or how to sit may not always be enough and if it’s your first day together it may create some overwhelming emotions whether you have a puppy or an adult dog.

Thinking from the perspective of your new fur baby who has just been kidnapped to their new forever home, they will also be overwhelmed! Having a command that simultaneously accomplishes several commands before they are even taught can save a  life. When you teach your new dog or puppy the command touch as soon as they get home not only do you have a way to bond with your pup, establish boundaries, and teach them a fun trick! You also have a way for them to do recall, overcome obstacles, and put them in different body positions. You can also use this as a form of greeting, especially if you have an older dog that was not properly socialized or has some fear towards certain types of people. This way you can teach them to communicate their comfortability to say hi or not. You can also use this to teach them to name their toys, objects, and people. The list goes on and on.

 You may ask well why don’t you just teach them all those other commands as soon as you get home? The reason I love this command so much is that for a new dog this is a really easy command for them to understand that gives you instant communication. Especially for little puppies or dogs that are still building trust with their owners giving them something to help them overcome so many obstacles right away really puts your relationship on the next level much faster. This is also a great command for the new pet parent or someone with a busy schedule or hectic life. Where if you just reinforce this one command early on you are setting both yourself and your pup up for success rather than having to spend extra time working on so many different commands when you need results now. This will jumpstart your training as well as give you something simple to do throughout your day or without feeling like you need to do more if you aren’t a trainer.  You are already accomplishing so much with so little that it’ll make training easier and more enjoyable so that when you want to work on the other commands like the obedience or the tricks it’s not as difficult because you have a solid foundation with that one command.

As a dog trainer, I’ve come to the very clear understanding that my students are not dog trainers, and I don’t expect them to spend as much time as I do working with their dogs. They have work, families, and busy lives. Dog training is not my client’s career path so I want to make training as easy and fun as possible so that training can be integrated into your lifestyle effortlessly and teaching touch at the very beginning is a way to do that and set your dog up for success.

Using touch as a foundational command when you teach them all the other commands will make it that much easier to generalize. Your other commands like sit, place, or recall will come more naturally because your dog will think  “oh I’ve done this before but it wasn’t called this”.

If you have a dog like many of my teenage clients, they don’t always want to listen to the obedience when you start to add distractions but with touch, you have a  backup command that they may prefer in those situations. I’ve learned that dogs may not want to come when called but they’re more likely to do a touch instead just depending on the environment and the specific distraction that they’re working on. Or say you have a fearful dog that is too scared to climb up on place and you don’t feel like getting them up there yourself. That’s when having touch will come to your aid when they’re more confident touching your hand and following it as a held touch that they wouldn’t be paying attention to the object they’ll just trust your hand means good things will come and that will get them on the place without them thinking about it.

Alas, I won’t talk your ear off this time, I just wanted to present my love for my favorite command. Obviously, I teach all the other commands but for young puppies or dogs that you just picked up and want to do something lighthearted that really sets the ball rolling, I swear by touch! It’s the greatest command that ever existed and not only as a service dog trainer and tasks training related but just as general obedience and body handling. It’s remarkable, rather aw inspiring in fact. So, with this, I bid you a do, and may your training sessions be filled with touch and good snacks! Please tell your schmoopy’s I said hi.

Sincerely,

Joey