Nose Touch — Day 1 with your dog

What you need

✅Loaded marker word — if "yes" doesn't make your dog immediately look at you for a treat, do the marker loading session first.
🍗15–20 small, high-value treats in your non-presentation hand or a treat pouch. The presentation hand stays clean — no food smell.
🏠Quiet room, low distraction. your dog should be at roughly your knee height — crouching or kneeling helps with small dogs.
⏱5 minutes maximum. Stop earlier if your dog disengages — you want to end on a success, not a shutdown.

Your Day 1 protocol

First 2 minutes

Present your flat hand

Hold your flat palm about 2 inches from your dog's nose — close enough that the natural thing to do is investigate it. Most dogs will touch it within 3 seconds just out of curiosity. The moment their nose makes contact with your palm: mark immediately with your word, then deliver a treat with your other hand. Mark at contact, not after. Not during. At.

Repetitions 1–5

Reset after each rep

After the mark and treat, pull your hand back behind your leg. Wait 2 seconds. Present again. Let your dog find the hand — don't move it toward them. You're waiting for your dog to offer the touch, not luring with the hand. If your dog doesn't touch in 5 seconds, move the hand slightly closer.

Repetitions 6–10

Add a small distance challenge

Present your palm at 6 inches instead of 2. your dog should now step or lean in to make contact. Mark the moment of contact. This tiny distance increase starts building the concept that nose touch is active, not passive — your dog moves toward the hand, not vice versa.

End of session

Release and observe

Toss a treat on the floor to signal the session is over. Watch what your dog does when they finish the treat. Do they look back at your hand? That's the behavior starting to generalize. That look-back is the precursor to offering the behavior voluntarily.

If your dog sniffs the hand but doesn't make nose contact, try rubbing a tiny amount of a smelly treat on the back of your hand before the session. Just enough to trigger investigation. You'll fade the food residue within 2–3 sessions once the behavior is established. If your dog mouths or paws at the hand rather than nosing it, use a closed fist instead of a flat palm — they can't bite a fist, and the moment they nose it, mark and open your hand to deliver the treat.

Why nose touch is in Week 1

Hand targeting looks like a party trick. It's actually an orientation tool that unlocks recall, heel position, directional movement, and nail trimming. Once your dog reliably touches your hand on cue, you can use the behavior to call them to your side without saying "come" — which matters when you've accidentally poisoned the recall cue by saying it too many times without a reward.

Jason taught Baelor nose touch in two 5-minute sessions. By Week 3, it was the anchor for loose-leash check-ins: every time Baelor glanced up during a walk, hand touch → mark → jackpot. The leash behavior improved before they even started formal LLW training.

Ready? Go train with your dog.

5 minutes. High-value treats. Quiet room. That's it.

✅ First session logged.

That's the hardest part. The first rep is always the activation moment — the moment this stops being theoretical.

Tomorrow: try Sit → ← Back to dashboard

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