Sssilent Sssignals

written by Butch Goodwin
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Northern Flight Retrievers  
The Retriever Journal  July/Aug. 2003

Four and a half years ago, I wrote “Teaching Retrievers to Crawl” in the February/March 1998 issue of RJ. In that column and several times since, I’ve mentioned that I have taught some of my retrievers to respond to silent hand gestures for whenever blowing a whistle or a voice command would spook birds. I have also mentioned teaching a few of my retrievers to “whoa” like a pointer, where the dog freezes in place until released. Over the time since I referred to teaching those com­mands, I have received numerous e­mails and calls asking that I expand on teaching these commands and how I teach them.

  Several years back, I came to the realization that my dogs and those of my hunt­ing buddies responded primarily to the vocal and whistle commands as they are recommended in most training books or videos. But both of these rather noisy methods of communication were flaring the birds we were trying to bag. In a duck blind or jumpshooting, my hunting partners were con­tinually blowing whistles or hollering at their dogs. And this commotion always seemed to be taking place at the most critical times - when birds were just beginning to decoy or when slipping up on a ditch to jumpshoot ducks.

 Sure, they usually tried to control their dogs quietly, but they always seemed to keep getting increasingly louder as the dog selectively tuned them out. Someone’s dog would, as the calling and excitement of ducks landing increased, head for the water and the birds would flare. Or, when jumpshooting, a dog would break and head for the ditch or pothole, forcing the ducks into the air before the hunters were in position.

  As a result of these experiences, I experimented with teaching one of my young dogs a series of silent hand signals. As it turned out, they worked so well that over the years I have continued to teach them to most of my personal hunting retrievers. And I’ve found that the easiest time to teach these is while I am also teaching the corresponding verbal commands. I will describe the silent commands that work for me; if a different gesture works better for you, use whatever comes most naturally.

To begin, while you are teaching your youngster the various com­mands such as "sit," “down," “here" and “stay,” simply link the silent signals into the equation; and also teach him to stand steady by using the command “whoa.” Before you can give a silent signal, you must get your dog’s attention. I do this by snapping my fingers; I want the dog to respond by looking directly at me. A voice or a whistle will alarm ducks, but a finger snap is relatively silent and not a sound that would tend to spook birds.

  While you are watching TV or reading and your dog is just lying around, snap your fingers or clap your hands to get his attention - and then remain silent. You might have to repeat this several times before he looks at you, but if you keep it up, eventually he will look at you to see what’s going on. At this point, consider offering him a treat followed by the silent praise of a scratch behind the ears or on the head - but remain silent. Then, again without a word, go back to whatever you were doing and ignore him.

  After a short period, try snapping your fingers or clapping your hands again, and follow it up with a treat and a scratch behind the ears. Repeat this intermittently. Eventually, you want to able to snap your fingers, have him turn to look at you, and when he begins to come toward you expecting a treat or a scratch, tell him "sit".

  When you are able to have him respond to finger snaps and then respond to the verbal com­mand to “sit” or “down ,“it is time to begin to incorporate a hand sign for these commands by linking them to the verbal command that he has been learning. The signal I use for “sit” is my index finger pointed skyward.

  So, try snapping your fingers, and when he turns and comes toward you, tell him to “sit” and point your index finger skyward. If he does it correctly, praise him verbally as well as with a pat on the head or scratch behind the ears, but don’t make him feel so prosperous that he breaks the “sit” and starts jumping around. Remember, the goal here is silent control, and it has to start now. Eventually, you want to have the visual signal for “sit,” the index finger pointed skyward, to have the same value as the verbal command.

  Intermittently phase out telling him to “sit” in favor of a hissing sound. I teach the hissing sound because there are times when perhaps my dog can’t see me, but he can hear my fingers snap followed by the hissing sound (such as when sitting outside of a blind). Eventually, I want to be able to use the “ssssit” as well as the “sssstay” commands along with a hand gesture. By the way, I have never found this hissing sound to be particularly disturbing to waterfowl even when sneaking up on a ditch where ducks were sitting.

  After teaching your dog to sit and remain sitting - whether you also taught the “stay” command or just expected that when he was told to "sit", he should remain sitting until released - you need to teach him the signal for “stay,” which is simply a palm forward (“traffic cop”) gesture after you’ve told him to “sit.” I teach my dogs the “stay” command but not necessarily when they
sit. I teach “stay” in a similar context to teaching a pointer to “whoa.” Let me explain.

  I want a dog to simply freeze in place (not necessarily sit) when I tell him to “stay.” If you want a separate command from the hissing sssst sound of the “sit” command, you could condition your dog to the word “whoa” as the pointer trainers do, which can be said rather quietly if need be. When I give the command to “stay,” I don’t care if they are sitting, standing, or lying down at the time; I just want them to stop, freeze in place, and pay attention.

  To teach this, snap your fingers to get your dog’s attention, follow it with the hand signal for “sit,” and then give the palm forward sign for “stay.” With time, you should be able to snap your fingers and follow it with the hand sign for “stay” and expect your dog to simply “whoa” or freeze in place like a pointer.

  Teach “down” in the same manner that you taught your dog “sit.” Again, I use an index finger but pointed toward the ground for “down.” So once I have taught the dog to lie down when told verbally, I begin to link together a finger snap followed by the verbal command, and also the silent hand signal indicating that I want him to lie down. Then it simply becomes a matter of phasing out the verbal command and using lots of praise to get the job accomplished.

At some point, you will want your dog to break from the “sit” or the “down” and come to you. Teaching this as a silent command is simply an extension of teaching the “here” com­mand. I’ve found that it is best to go through the entire gamut of signals each time you teach a new command.

  So, I start with a finger snap to get the dog’s attention, followed by a “sit" or “down” silent command. Then I give him the palm forward “stay” signal, and walk off some distance. It’s best to make him “sit” or “stay” for a few moments, and then snap your fingers again as if to tell him to pay attention, something is about to happen.

  Then I beckon him toward me with my whole hand, kind of like when a cop directing traffic waves cars through the intersection. Also, I teach this beck­oning gesture down at waist or thigh level rather than at shoulder-level.

  You might find that you have to tell your dog, “Here” (or, “Come”) until he figures out the meaning of this new gesture; but he should catch on to it quite quickly. It seems that young dogs that have been made to “sit” or “stay” at a distance are usually quite eager to come running when the trainer walks off.

  This brings up another point, some­thing I mentioned above: I teach all of the silent gestures at waist level or below as I don’t want to have to be waving my arms around in the air when I’m in a blind or jumpshooting. Since the purpose in teaching all of this is stealth, these signals should be kept as discreet as possible. 

Recently, I have incorporated another gesture that has provenTo be quite useful when added to my other silent signals. When jumpshoot­ing, if I have told my dog to “sit" (whether verbally or by gesture) and I sneak up on a likely spot where the birds might be sitting, and if no birds are present and I want to move to another likely place, I silently call the dog to me with the “here” signal and follow it with a gesture meaning “heel.” To teach the dog to silently come to “heel,” I simply snap my fingers and pat my left thigh just above my knee (right thigh if you have taught your dog to heel on the right side).

  To teach this, your dog should be in a sitting position at a distance away from your side. Start by snapping your fingers to get his attention. I like to reinforce the “sit” by pointing my index finger skyward (this also indicates to him that something is about to happen), then call him to you with the “here” gesture; as he approaches, give the verbal command to “heel,” and pat your leg on whichever side he heels. As with the other silent commands, lots of repetition and praise for correctly executing the command, and gradually phasing out of the verbal command is the key to his learning this new signal.

  Now before someone tells me that in the area where they live it is too cold to snap their fingers, remember, I lived in the Colorado mountains for many years where it was common to be out hunting ducks and geese when the outdoor temperatures were “frozen” in the single digits. No one has to tell me about taking off a pair of gloves and how frozen fingers don’t always seem to want to snap. So be creative - if you live in an area where employing a finger snap is impossible, simply devise another method to quietly get your dog’s attention.

  I can tell you from experience that at temperatures like that, your duck call, whistle, and the action on your shotgun all freeze up, and nothing performs as intended anyhow. So just figure out what works for you - remember, that’s what makes training a hunting dog so much fun: “coloring outside the lines” - improvising the training to fit your particular situation.