What's More Effective On Pups - Voice Commands Or Hand Signals?

Often times, pup mommies and daddies give their pups a combination of vocal commands and hand gestures when training the. Have you ever wondered which one is better?

A journal called Animal Cognition recently accepted a study report of this topic for publication. The study was conducted by a group of Italian researchers, led by Biagio D’Aniello from the Department of Biology at the University of Naples. This study involved 25 pups – 10 golden retrievers and 15 labrador retrievers – recruited with their mommies and daddies at the Italian School of Water Rescue Dogs. The pups had already been trained to respond to commands given both vocally and through gestures.

The first phase of the investigation involved the pup parents giving their pups basic commands using only hand signals, and the second involved giving those same commands vocally without any other gestures. Then the final test arrived, where the fur balls were given vocal commands and hand signals that did not match up, at the same time.

For example, the verbal command “sit” might be said at the same time as the hand signal for “lie down” was given. The results? They speak for themselves. In the first test with only hand gestures, pups reached a 99% level of accuracy. In the second test, which involved only verbal commands, the accuracy score was 82%. And in the last test, the pups obeyed the hand gestures and not the vocal commands 70% of the time.

Now you know the truth! Pups are naturally attuned to body language and are more likely to obey hand signals that verbal commands. Not bad! Give this a like and share if you found it interesting!

Feature Image Source: Pixabay