Trick-Training: Teach Your Dog The Touch Command

If you only ever teach your dog one trick, make it this one! Not only because it's incredibly easy for your dog to learn, but also because it allows you to perform a number of other tricks with relative ease.

The 'touch' command is essentially based on teaching your dog to target, and if you can teach your dog to target, you can teach them how to do so many other things, including pushing buttons, closing doors and drawers, moving balls and wheeled objects, and more! You can even control their movement by asking them to repeatedly target your hand in the direction you want them to walk (I do this when I want Nova to walk back and forth over a towel when her feet are wet!)

So to find out how to teach your dog the incredibly simple 'touch' command, check out our tutorial video here. If you've already mastered this, but you'd like to see how to take it to the next level, and use targeting to teach your dog a range of other moves, then check out this video, where I teach Nova to target-push a moving object... a.k.a - close a door!