Hi,

Just wondering if anyone has any suggestions on how to begin teaching your dog "Left" and "Right". One suggestion we've had is to place two bowls down about 10 ft in front of her, one to the left and the other to the right. Then to place a treat in the bowls and release her to get the treat using a command word in relation to the direction we want her to go. I was wondering if anyone else knew of any other methods.

Thanks :)

Most my hounds know left and right but I have never taught it, but when walking on the lead I always say left, right or turn and they must pick it up, never thought of it before ;)

Bet the agility people have a method of teaching it and I will be interested to know what they do.

Recently been training my dog to go on a mat.  Our trainer suggested putting the mat on the floor and traiing it for a while to go left, then put one on the other side and train it to go right and eventually you can put both down and get your dog to go left or right. It's taken me long enough to get my boy on the mat never mind doing his left and rights :d

For what reason do you want to teach left and right? I don't know about other disciplines, but in gundog work, we start by sitting the dog with it's back to a hedge or fence line. We tell it to wait and then stand a few yards away facing the dog. We throw a retrieve out to the side we want the dog to retrieve from. We use a hand signal which is to hold our up hand high and tell the dog wait. We then lower the arm to shoulder height pointing the direction we want the dog to go.
So if we are training a left hand retrieve, we hold up the left hand, so when it is lowered to shoulder height it is automatically pointing to the left. If the dog is unsure we step sideways in the direction we want them to go. We repeat this for the right hand retrieve. Finally we try this in the open field. As gundog handlers will also want the dog to go back away from them this is a third direction we teach on a hand signal.
Hence why I asked you what discipline you are involved in which requires using a left and a right.
Another thought I had was do you mean a left hand side heel and a right hand side heel command?
Polly

we recently have been teaching our young bc directions for agility later on, we are doing it using a toy during play, so far its worked well, she will turn in the right direction anyway - we havent yet grasped bringing the toy back tho!!
my other half likes to teach them to 'spin' either left or right, again using a toy,
how ours learn is by playing with a tug toy and actually turning them while they are still holding the toy in their mouth, gradually wean them off of the toy and use it as the reward for the action you want

hope it helps!
chel

Do you use a clicker? If so it should not be difficult, teach one way first, don't need props just do it the same way as you would teach a sit or down. Don't know why I did not think of it before, guess it is because I have never done it myself.

Hi Jackie,

No we don't use a clicker, we use reward based training (which works amazingly well, she'll do anything for a piece of chicken :rolleyes: )

Clicker is reward based, the clicker just marks that what the dog is doing is what you want, it is then followed by the reward. You don't need a clicker you could clap your hands as long and you get the timing right.

Ah ok, i've never considered clicker training and don't have any idea whats involved.

Well to teach what you have in mind, you would say to the dog left and then wait till by accident she went left, just one step would do, you click the moment she does it correct and reward. Repeat this for a short while about 10 minutes and do that for 2 or 3 times a day. Most dogs cotton on to what you want within the first 5 minutes. You then only click & treat when 2 steps are taken and so on.

Hi Polly,

We want to teach her to pull a rig when she is old enough, and we want to start on the basics now, like teaching left and right and to move forward etc. She'll have to take verbal commands as she won't be able to see us. 

Like most training - how you teach it depends on what you want the final result to be.  For agility we let the dog jump a fence from being held by the trainer with the owner standing to one side calling the dog, then start using two different commands for left turns and right turns.

I would agree with Jackie and use a clicker.  Mine have been taught left and right following on from heelwork and all their training has been done with a clicker.

This way your dog will get to know exactly what the command means.  Drop me an email (volsungrotts@aol.com) if you want some tips.

I taught a sheep left from right using a clicker - just to raise the named foot to command, but we did it <G>