How can I teach Aries the concept of pointing at something?

[Calin]

Hiya,

Not been on here for a while, but lately I've been struggling with something. Aries has just hit two years of age and he's still having trouble with the idea of pointing at something. Not him doing it, I'm referring more to when I point at an object. He just doesn't seem to grasp the idea of it, instead of looking at whatever there is to look at he ends up looking at my hand/looking around everywhere confused.

I've tried turning his head towards it, waiting until he spots something and then pointing along his line of sign but its all been pretty hopeless. Did anyone else have this kind of problem? And more importantly, does anyone have any tips?

Thanks,

Calin

[Elyse]

Sometimes my boy looks at my hand instead of what I'm pointing at, but when he does I just say 'look!' (in a somewhat excited voice) and then he looks in the direction I'm pointing at. I think he 'came' with that command at the shelter, though, so I wouldn't know how to train it.

I'm sorry I'm not very helpful, I'm sure other people will come along and provide advice.

[Calin]

Thanks, I try saying "Look" every time I point but it never works!

[Elyse]

I found this by looking on Google...I don't know if it works but it might be worth a try...

Get some treats, assuming your dog is even slightly food motivated, and place them on a hard surface. Then tap with your nail (I have long ones so this is easier for me) and say 'look' (or whatever verbal command you like). Of course the dog will take the treat. Repeat. The nail tapping will draw your dog's attention to the place you want them to focus...where you are pointing. After a bit you should be able to just put finger to treat and they should look. Then it would be like learning the stay command, back off the finger some distance from the treat. You should eventually have a dog who looks where you point.

Source: http://www.cairnterrier.org/forum/topic/11581-how-to-train-a-dog-to-look-where-you-point/

[Calin]

Nope I've tried that. He's got the tapping thing down without a hitch, it's more of a distance thing that he has trouble with.

[Calin]

So, anyone?

[Removed #5]

Don't know about a Husky, I had a lab who caught onto the idea because she'd go fetch a ball and when she lost it I could eventually point to it. The way it worked with her was to have her in set / stay, then throw the ball and keep my hand pointed toward it - then tell her to go fetch. It didn't take her long to get the idea that what she wanted was where I was pointing. It *might* work with a food oriented Husky if you could keep him in stay long enough.

[Calin]

Thanks Al, I'll give that a try with Aries over the next week or two and see how it goes.

[Kechara]

I'm an amateur, but in obedience classes we've had to work on this a bit. Jake took to it pretty quickly.

Goes something like this: have a treat in your hand. Make him sit/stay (I have to hold Jake's collar to keep him in a stay) and kneel down next to them. With your hand somewhat close to the side of his face, toss the treat out in front of him while keeping your hand in a pointing position kind of parallel to his face/snout; I keep all 4 fingers extended out, sort of guiding his face to be looking at that treat. You can add a word to it such as "Look", but I haven't done so yet, mainly because I'm just focused on keeping his attention on the treat with encouraging words/phrases- do you want that? see it? you want to get it?! When you're ready to release him, tell him "get it!" or whatever words you'd like to mark that, fetch etc, and lots of praise after

Edit: once he gets it, you can probably just keep increasing the distance you toss the treat out to work on getting him looking farther away

[Bec]

What do you want when you want him to look at something? What is the purpose behind it - do you want him to retrieve the item you are pointing at?

[Calin]

I'm an amateur, but in obedience classes we've had to work on this a bit. Jake took to it pretty quickly.

Goes something like this: have a treat in your hand. Make him sit/stay (I have to hold Jake's collar to keep him in a stay) and kneel down next to them. With your hand somewhat close to the side of his face, toss the treat out in front of him while keeping your hand in a pointing position kind of parallel to his face/snout; I keep all 4 fingers extended out, sort of guiding his face to be looking at that treat. You can add a word to it such as "Look", but I haven't done so yet, mainly because I'm just focused on keeping his attention on the treat with encouraging words/phrases- do you want that? see it? you want to get it?! When you're ready to release him, tell him "get it!" or whatever words you'd like to mark that, fetch etc, and lots of praise after

Edit: once he gets it, you can probably just keep increasing the distance you toss the treat out to work on getting him looking farther away

Hey, that's a cool way to do it, thanks for the advice!

Bec - I just want to be able to point out stuff to him in general, like which toy I want him to grab, show him where something is if he's lost track of it, or even just towards a duck so he can run up and bark at it (he's not tried hurting them yet, just goes down into a "play bow" and wags his tail in excitement!). I donno, just in general I think its a useful thing which he hasn't quite mastered yet.

[Bec]

Bec - I just want to be able to point out stuff to him in general, like which toy I want him to grab, show him where something is if he's lost track of it, or even just towards a duck so he can run up and bark at it (he's not tried hurting them yet, just goes down into a "play bow" and wags his tail in excitement!). I donno, just in general I think its a useful thing which he hasn't quite mastered yet.

It might help him to break it down a bit more. I would teach him to pick up items and bring them to you on command. I have a 'take' command I give my dog when I want her to pick an item up and give it to me. There are lots of ways to teach a retrieve, start by getting him to pick up an object from your hand and hold it in his mouth. I trained that with this method:

http://www.shirleychong.com/keepers/retrieve.html

Personally I wouldn't let him bark and run up to ducks, as he matures his prey drive will likely develop more and it's also not fair to scare/stress the ducks like that.