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Family cues

How to teach the whole family the cues

After a stay, one person usually knows the cues best: whoever came to the go-home lesson. Within a week a dog can be hearing three versions of every cue from three people. Getting the whole family onto the same words, signals and rewards is what turns a trained dog into a dog that listens to everyone.

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Three doodles holding a sit for their trainer

Last reviewed October 10, 2026 · by the Dogtown team · reviewed by Gabriella Pope, Director of Training & Canine Behaviorist

Before you start

Before you start, write one cue sheet with every word, signal and reward

The cue sheet is one page. For each skill, write the word, the hand signal, what the dog should do, the release word and the reward. Add the marker, usually a short yes, and note how it should sound. Copy everything from the go-home lesson exactly, including the small details people skip, such as whether the reward goes at your leg or on the mat. Stick the sheet where everyone sees it, such as inside a kitchen cupboard door.

Hand signals deserve as much care as words. In a 2016 study in Animal Cognition, D'Aniello and colleagues found that trained water-rescue dogs responded more reliably to gestures than to spoken cues, and that when a gesture and a word disagreed, the dogs mostly followed the gesture. A family that agrees on the word for down but uses three different hand movements is still giving the dog three different cues.

  • The word and the hand signal for each cue
  • The marker and how it should sound
  • The release word
  • Where and how the reward is delivered

The steps

Seven steps take the family from watching to cueing on their own, with a weekly check

The person who attended the go-home lesson becomes the family coach. Their job is not to do all the training but to show each person the cue as the trainer showed it, watch them try and correct small things like timing, tone and where the treat goes. Keep turns short and cheerful, with the dog paid generously, so that every new handler is good news from the dog's point of view.

Hand out real jobs once the turns go well, because cues stay sharp when they are used. A child can ask for sit before the food bowl goes down, with an adult beside them. A partner can own the evening walk and its loose-leash rules. A grandparent can run place while the family eats. Each job is small, repeated daily and done the same way by whoever does it.

  1. 01

    Write the cue sheet: each skill with its word, hand signal, release word and reward.

  2. 02

    Hold a family demonstration: the person from the go-home lesson runs each cue while everyone watches.

  3. 03

    Give everyone a turn: each person runs three easy cues, five repetitions each, with coaching.

  4. 04

    Practice signals in silence: run the hand signals without words, so everyone's gestures match.

  5. 05

    Hand out jobs: one small daily job per person, such as sit before meals or place during dinner.

  6. 06

    Check weekly: watch each person cue the dog for a minute and fix any drift.

  7. 07

    Change the sheet only together: add or alter a cue by agreement, then retrain everyone on it.

A small shaggy terrier mix in a pink harness reaches up for a treat from an outstretched hand on grass.

Everyone's version

Children, partners and grandparents each need a slightly different version of the same lesson

Children learn cues quickly and forget rules quickly, so an adult stays beside them. The ASPCA's dog-bite prevention advice is plain: always supervise children and dogs, never leave a baby or young child alone with a dog, and teach children to treat the dog gently and give it space to rest. Give children jobs where the food goes to the dog, such as a sit before dinner, and keep them off the leash of a strong dog. Partners need fewer rules, real agreement and the habit of watching each other cue.

Grandparents and older relatives raise a safety question. A CDC analysis of emergency-room data from 2001 to 2006 estimated about 86,600 fall injuries a year linked to cats and dogs, nearly 88 percent of them involving dogs, and tripping over the dog was the most common circumstance in the dog-related falls. Place is the cue that helps most here, because a dog on its mat is not underfoot. Hand signals carry when a voice is quiet, and a chair makes the cues easier to give.

  • Children: supervised, with jobs where the food goes to the dog
  • Partners: one version of every cue, and watch each other
  • Grandparents: place to keep the dog from underfoot, hand signals, a seat
  • Sitters and walkers: the short version of the cue sheet

Mistakes we see

The usual mistakes are a single family trainer, word drift and rewards that vary by person

A familiar pattern is the single family trainer. The person from the go-home lesson does every session, the dog responds beautifully to them, and everyone else gets ignored. The dog is not choosing favorites; it simply has a long history of getting paid by one person. Spread the turns from the first week. Word drift is the second problem: come becomes come here, then here, then the dog's name in a rising voice.

Rewards cause quieter trouble. If one person pays with chicken, another with kibble and a third with a pat, the dog learns whose cues are worth answering. Agree what counts as a reward for each cue and keep the treats where everyone can reach them. Then there are repeated cues: sit, sit, SIT teaches the dog to wait for the third one. Say it once, help the dog succeed and pay.

  • One person doing all the training
  • Cue words that slowly change
  • Big rewards from one person, none from another
  • Repeating the cue until the dog responds

When to call us

Call us when the dog answers one person and ignores the rest, or when a child and the dog are not getting along

If the dog still responds to only one family member after two or three weeks of shared turns, a private session, from $94, can put everyone in the room with a trainer, one at a time. If your Advanced program's second coaching lesson is still to come, bring the whole household to it; that is the simplest fix of all. Our board and train page lists what each program covered, which helps when you write the cue sheet.

Call sooner if a child and the dog are not getting along: the dog stiffens, growls, avoids one particular child or mouths too hard in play. Stop that child's sessions, keep them apart with a gate and ask us before the next try. The training form gets a reply within one hour on business days, or you can message the front desk through the Dogtown app. If our walkers or the Pup Van, $10 each way in Rockport, Gloucester, Essex and Manchester-by-the-Sea, are part of your week, share the short cue sheet with us too.

At Dogtown

Everyone on the same page

Private sessions for the whole household, and walkers who use your words and rewards.

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Asked and answered

Questions people ask about this

Short, complete answers you can act on today. More in the full FAQ.

How old should a child be to give the dog cues?
Children can give simple cues such as sit from quite young, as long as an adult is right there and the dog is calm. What changes with age is the job, not the supervision. Walking a strong dog on the leash, for example, should wait until the child can hold the dog safely and the dog walks well for adults.
Does it matter if we use different hand signals?
Yes. Research on trained dogs found they tended to follow a gesture over a word when the two disagreed, so a mismatched hand signal can override the right word. Agree one signal per cue, practice the signals in silence, and check each other's gestures every week or two.
My partner and I want different rules. What do we do?
Agree on the three or four cues that matter most and use them identically, then negotiate the rest. A dog copes better with a few rules that never change than with many that depend on who is home. Our household rules page covers the rulebook side of the conversation.
Should visitors use the cues too?
Only the simplest, and only the way you show them. A guest who asks for a sit and pays it calmly is helpful; one who invents a new word or repeats the cue five times is not. For short visits it is often easier to hand the guest a treat and ask them to wait for four paws on the floor.
Can our dog walker use the cue sheet?
Yes, and it helps. Give the walker the short version: the leash rules, the recall word, the release word and the reward. If you use Dogtown's at-home walks, tell us your cue words so our walkers use them too; walking availability depends on your address, so ask whether we cover it.

More questions? Read the full FAQ

Sources

Rules and dates change. We re-check every beach, licensing and ordinance page each spring and fall; the source above is the current word.

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