Verbal versus Visual

What is it like to travel to another country that does not speak your language and try and get a bite to eat or a hotel room? How do you communicate with the other person? Do you use your hands to gesture to what you are asking for? Or do you raise your voice louder to try and expect that because your voice is louder, they will suddenly understand you?

This is what it is like trying to communicate with our dogs. While we are trying to verbally tell our dogs how we feel and what we want them to do, they are completely lost. They communicate by reading our body language. So instead of using what comes naturally to us, we should try and use less talking and more visual communications.
Now this is easier said than done. There have been many times when I am training my own dogs, and I am unsuccessful because I keep talking to them. When that happens, I will close my mouth and try it again without any talking. I find when I do this, I become more aware of what my body is saying to my dog. If I am trying to get my dog to go forward into a tunnel but she goes to the right and goes over a jump. I need to stop and see exactly where my body is telling her to go. If my shoulders, hips, and feet are not pointing in the same direction as I am telling her to go verbally, she won’t complete the tunnel because my body is telling her differently.