We are going to explain two different methods of teaching a dog to do the Dog-Game Touch.

• The first method explains how to teach a dog to touch a "marker" with its front paw - this training can be done informally at home while you are watching TV and relaxing. Once the dog has understood the concept, the marker is stuck on a target box and the dog is taught to run up to the box, touch the marker with its paw and run back to its handler.
  
  
• The other method of teaching a dog to do Touch is done by slightly altering what it was taught to do in Hand. Instead of the ball being put on a black rubber car mat for the dog to retrieve, the ball is placed in a "ball holder" that can be clipped to the front of the Target Box. Although this is a far quicker method of training a dog to do Touch it has the limitation of not being able to teach the dog to press or touch any other object in any other circumstances (which it is possible to do using the "marker" method - eg. shutting doors, pressing buttons, training a dog to touch contact equipment in Agility, etc).

Whichever method you use you will find over a period of time that the dog builds up the confidence to run further away until it can do a sendaway to a target box that is on the 51ft marker (Level Two). It learns to run between the poles, run up to and touch the target box, run back through the poles, and return to its handler for its motivator. The dog should be instantly rewarded with the motivator as soon as the handler has got hold of its harness.

As with all the Dog-Games, each stage is non-competitive and is designed to help both dog and handler learn at their own pace and to their own ability. Dog-Games recommends that the dog wears a well fitting harness so that the handler can hold the dog comfortably and securely before the sendaway.

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