Ooooooh, poor Britster, her dog knows so many tricks she is running out of hand signals. Excuse me while I cry a river.
I tried a bunch of times to lure Thor with a treat in the other direction - and he would promptly spin the OPPOSITE way to catch up with my hand. It was quite an ordeal to convince him to Turn Left (
), and I finally moved around HIM, and let him lay down halfway through the move (when in doubt, he figures Sitting or Laying is the right move). But once I got him to turn left a few times, I was able to shape it pretty quickly to a hand gesture. My gesture is a giant circle at the moment, and I'd like to get it more subtle.
FYI, here is the way to switch from hand to voice (or to another word, or another signal, whatever). Have the dog do the same trick 5-10 times in a row. Then just say the word. The dog will most likely sit and stare at you. That's okay. Do another few with the old way, and then try again. At some point the dog will tentatively offer the old behavior under the new word. Give PRAISE and REWARD! Continue to switch from one to the other, with a much bigger reward for the new way.
Also, it is possible for dogs to only cue to the hand gesture. This is called "overshadowing", where the animal only picks up on one cue. One of my favorite dog behaviorists, Brenda Aloff, was doing dog dancing with her super-smart border collie. After months of doing a certain move, she realized that the border collie was not watching her hands or listening to her voice - she had been raising her eyebrows every time she asked for this move, and the border collie had decided that was the signal.
And you can always go back to Zoolander. It's like Shakespeare.