Dog Training Psychology for Dog Agility

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Using Verbal Directional Cues in Dog Agility

Teaching Directionality

Teaching your dog to respond to verbal directional cues can be a lot of work. Some expert trainers don't bother with this approach. saying, 


But I think they are missing a fun and valuable approach to leading their dog around the dog agility.


I love it that Magic Momo responds so well to right and left verbal cues. This helps a lot when the dog agility course turns from one directions to the other.  Here are some a tip to get you started training your dog to understand verbal directional cues.

Start with Luring or Tug Play
Luring has a bad name in dog agility training. It's even called "bribing" by some well-meaning dog trainers. Come on!  Bribing is "...valuable consideration given or promised with a view to corrupting the behavior of a person.." OK, some people use bribing in the sense of promising a reward for desired behavior, but in my book, luring is not bribing because bribing has such a negative connotation. 

There is nothing wrong with luring a dog to get a behavior started. Once the behavior happens, you can label it and reinforce it with operant conditioning. See the article on clicking training to learn more. The dog will eventually learn to respond to a verbal cue of the behavior.

Start with a Tugging Game. To lure with a tug toy, first get into a tugging game and then spin the tug toy in a circle to the left or right and label the behavior with whatever key word your want to use. Just be consistent.  


In the USA, you can get a book titled LEARN DOG AGILITY TECHNIQUES OF CHAMPIONS (By clicking here).
It reveals more details about Directionality.

In other countries, please log in to Amazon and search for this code: B07KCXLCX6 or search for the title and author (Philip Seyer)


Verbal Directional Cues

Momo Makes a Left Turn

In the photo here you can see Momo taking a diving jump and turning sharply left in an AKC Masters Course.


In the video titled "AKC Dog Agility..." you can see how well Momo responded to left and right cues along with rear crosses. Yes, I was also using rear crosses and Momo has eyes in the back of her head. But I'm convinced that the combination of the verbal and non-verbal cues helped Momo to be certain which way to turn after taking a jump. If you want to take your agility handling technique to the next level, click the button below for a complete, fully guaranteed online course in Directionallity.

Take an Online Course in Directionality. Click here to Start with a Free Preview

There a lot more to teaching a dog to respond to turn left or right then just spinning the dog and labeling the behavior. The course available via the button above will give you all the details. It is risk free and full guaranteed.

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