When teaching anything to anyone, it is important that the foundation skills are covered first. In dog training, there are a couple foundation skills that your dog should know. In this article I am going to discuss the first foundation skill that you need teach your dog. That foundation skill is targeting.
What Is Targeting?
In animal training, targeting is the action of your dog (or pet) touching an object (the target) with a specific part of its body (such as its nose). Examples of humans using targeting skills would be touching a button with your fingertip and standing on a social distancing sticker in line at the grocery store. With dogs, the first targeting behavior that dogs should learn is the nose target. The nose target consists of your dog touching a target with its nose (I recommend starting with the palm of your hand as the target). While dogs are definitely not limited to nose targeting, this is an easy and useful place to start.
Why Should You Teach Targeting?
Many dog owners train “sit” or “come” as their dog’s first behavior, so it might sound odd to teach something else first. However, there is a very good reason you need to start with targeting. I want you to stop for a moment and go find your dog. Ask your dog to lay down. If your dog does not lay down on cue, ask it to sit. Give your dog a treat for responding to the cue, then answer these questions. What happened? Did one part of your dog’s body touch an object? The answer is yes! When your dog laid down, its belly touched the ground, its elbows touched the ground, and its chin might have even touched the ground. When your dog sat down, its bottom touched the ground. This is targeting! However, did you know that many other behaviors involve targeting? “Go to crate”, “stay”, “off”, and even “come” are just a few common behaviors that involve some form of targeting.
At this point, you might be thinking, “If my dog knows these behaviors, then doesn’t my dog already know how to target?” My answer would be yes, and no. Let me explain. Yes, your dog knows how to target. Your dog knows how to put its bottom down on the ground; it knows how to rest its chin on something or touch the ground with its elbows. However, does it know that you want it to that? Does it consciously think about the concept of targeting when it performs these behaviors? You see, targeting is a skill that develops at a young age in, to the best of my knowledge, every species. However, it seems to develop simply out of a need to interact with the environment. Your dog will not understand the concept of “targeting” until you teach it to identify that the concept of targeting exists and is something that it should use to solve problems and accomplish the behaviors you ask it to perform. The same thing applies to you as the handler. You have to be aware of targeting, what it is, and how to use it before you can use it for anything, as opposed to it coincidentally being part of the behavior. Once both of you know about targeting, what it is, and how to use it, many behaviors become much simpler because they simply involve your dog touching a target or two. Targeting can take what were once seemingly complicated behaviors and make them as simple as your dog touching one or more targets.
Resources for Getting Started with Targeting Skills
As mentioned before, you need to be aware of targeting, know what it is, and how to use it before you can apply it. We have covered the first two. Now it is time for you and your dog to learn how to use targeting. The first thing you need to do is teach your dog the concept of targeting. The simplest way to do this is to simply start teaching your dog to target your hand with its nose. To learn how to do this, click here and sign up to become a H.A.T.S. VIP Member where you can get access to “The Training Lab” blog category and videos on how to teach your dog targeting and get started with this incredible foundation skill! For those who are already members, keep an eye out for next week’s blog post in “The Training Lab” where I will give you a step-by-step explanation of how to train not one but two important targeting skills to help you and your dog get started!
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