Directional cues

Your dog moves left or right on a word while metres away from you — a skill for agility, for searching and for every moment you can’t walk over yourself.

🐾🐾🐾🐾🐾 · ~21 days · 6 min/session

Learn first: Send to the mat, Stay

Step-by-step

1. Fix the words and the perspective

   Pick two words that don’t sound alike — “Left” and “Right” do the job nicely, as long as you say them short and crisp. Over wind and distance your dog catches little more than the first syllable, so don’t swallow the ending. Decide once and for all whether the direction is from your dog’s point of view or from yours, and write it down. Unlike “Spin”, the dog here doesn’t turn on the spot at your leg — they travel sideways away from you.

   💡 Swap the perspective halfway through and you start over — to your dog the same word suddenly points the opposite way.

2. Build one clear target

   Put a mat or a flat lid three metres out to one side and send your dog to it with a gesture and “Go”. The moment they step on the target, mark with “Yes” and toss the treat right there. Repeat until they run to it without hesitating — still with no direction word at all.

3. Two targets, hand only

   Set a second target symmetrically on the other side and have your dog sit facing you, midway between the two. Extend one arm towards a target — the whole arm, clear and high — and send with “Go”. Reward at the target they reach and bring them back to the start position before the next rep.

4. The word comes before the hand

   Say “Left”, count to one in your head and only then extend your arm. That pause is the whole trick — it gives the dog a chance to answer the word and turns the gesture into a hint rather than the cue. Reward just as generously whether they went on the word alone or waited for the hand.

   💡 If your dog leaves on the word before your arm moves, pay a jackpot of three treats. That is exactly the behaviour you’re building.

5. Shrink the gesture, grow the distance

   Each session make the gesture a little smaller — whole arm, then from the elbow, then wrist only, finally a small nod of the chin. Alongside that, step back a metre at a time, but never shrink the gesture and add distance in the same session. If they get it wrong twice in a row, bring the big arm back for a few reps.

6. Randomise and take it outdoors

   Flip a coin or write yourself a random list of directions — alternate left-right-left and the dog learns the pattern, not the word. Then take the targets away and work on grass, in an open field, around other dogs. Test honestly: below eight correct out of ten in a new place, drop back one level.

   💡 This is running with sharp turns at speed — work on grass or other soft footing and warm up for two minutes first. In a young dog the growth plates are still open, and with any limp or past joint trouble ask your vet before you add distance.

Common mistakes

• A predictable left-right alternation — at home the dog looks brilliant and outside they simply guess, because they learned the order, not the words.
• Leaking the direction with your shoulder and your eyes while you believe the dog is listening to the word. Dogs read the body first and the word stays redundant.
• Rewarding at your side instead of at the target — the dog learns to set off and come straight back for the treat.
• Adding distance and shrinking the gesture in one session — two changes at once and afterwards you can’t tell which one broke the behaviour.

Problems & solutions

My dog only goes the right way when I point with my whole arm.

The word means nothing to them yet — shrink the gesture by a few centimetres per session, not all at once. Say the word and count to one before your arm moves, so the dog has time to answer on its own. After two errors in a row, go back to the previous gesture size for five reps and carry on from there.

At five metres they get it, at fifteen they’re fifty-fifty.

Fifty-fifty means pure guessing — at that distance the word doesn’t exist for your dog yet. Go back to the distance where they’re solid and add one metre only after nine correct reps out of ten. One level up per session is plenty.

They launch off before I’ve even said the direction.

Build the wait separately: ask for a sit facing you, wait a different length of time each rep and reward the waiting itself without sending anywhere. If they leave early, calmly walk them back with no treat and no comment — nothing happens until the word comes.

Reward ideas

Reward where the dog arrived — a treat tossed onto the target or a ball rolled in the same direction. Save the three-treat jackpot for the reps taken on the word alone, with no hand.