How to teach a dog to touch your hand on cue

What “hand target” actually means

In Proof this is a skill in its own right, because a hand target moves the dog without pulling and rebuilds focus anywhere.

The stages

These steps are a draft pending review by a credentialed trainer. They describe standard positive-reinforcement marker training; the app carries the same notice on every session screen.

1. Stage 1 — Nose to palm

   Goal: Dog bumps your flat palm with its nose on presentation

   1. Present a flat palm a few centimetres from the nose. Most dogs sniff it.
   2. Mark the moment of contact, treat from the other hand.
   3. Move the palm slightly between reps so touching it stays a choice.

   If it goes wrong

   • Dog ignores the palm? Rub a treat on it once so it smells worth investigating, then fade that fast.
   • Dog bites at the palm instead of bumping? Mark earlier — the approach, not the contact — and present the hand lower.

2. Stage 2 — Follow the target

   Goal: Dog moves a step or two to reach the palm

   1. Present the palm a step away. Mark contact, treat.
   2. Vary sides and heights. Add the cue "touch" just before presenting.

   If it goes wrong

   • Dog quits when the palm moves further? You raised distance too fast — go back to half a step.

How long does it take?

Most foundation skills reach their bar in two to four weeks of short daily sessions. Adolescence can temporarily un-stick anything, which is normal.

Proof does not put a timeline on an individual skill, and neither should anything else — the honest answer depends on the dog in front of you, how often you practise, and where you practise. What it does instead is measure: every session records how many reps landed, so progress is a number rather than a feeling.

Proving it in 3 different places

A behaviour that only works in the kitchen is situational, not trained. Hand target counts as proven in Proof once it clears the bar above at the top stage in 3 genuinely different contexts:

• Indoors — the quiet room where everything works
• Garden — outdoors, but home turf
• Street — pavements, traffic, passing people
• Park — other dogs, long grass, real distraction
• Somewhere new — a place the dog has never worked before

Proof also expires. Leave a proven skill for two months without asking for it and it returns to the daily plan as a refresher, because that is what actually happens to trained behaviour.