Give me her paw!

Re: GIVE HER PAW

have the dog sitting and facing you. (you'll need lots of good treats for this, so make them small pieces.)

pick up one of the dogs paws and say "shake" (or whatever word you want to use) and then immediately say "good shake!" and give the treat.

After just a few times, she'll get it, and start offering the paw without you picking it up for her. When she does, continue saying the word and rewarding with a treat.

As with any new trick, keep up the treats for every offering of the behavior at first...then you can reduce the payoff to every other time, then less--but always reward with verbal praise.

But remember not to let her take over the game. If she's a smarty pants she may start offering the paw (pawing at you) to get a reward, even if you haven't asked her to "shake." If she does that, ignore those.

Re: GIVE HER PAW

I did it EXACTLY the way Tracy explains (including ignoring unwanted pawing at me).

I taught "shake," for the right paw and "left paw," for the other. It's kind of fun because we can entertain people (especially kids) by making it look like he knows his right from his left.

"Camper, *Shake.*"
He offers his right paw.
"Oh, Camper, I wanted your *left paw.*"
He offers the left paw.


Ah, my dog, the genius...

Re: GIVE HER PAW

Shake was one of the first tricks I tried to teach Abby and it proved to be pretty difficult to teach.

Some of you may remember my posts from back then - when I first got Abby, she was not at all interested in treats or toys or anything of that matter as a reward. So just holding out a treat and hoping for her to offer the behavior was a moot point, she'd just look at me like she was saying, "Yeah. It's a treat. And?"

So what I did was something I used to do when I used to horseback ride way back when. When getting the horse ready for a ride, I would brush the horse and, of course, clean the hooves. Most horses (with exceptions) will offer their hoof if you tap their pasterns with your hand.

With Abby, I used that method to get her to offer a paw. I would say "shake" and gently tap the "back" side of her pasterns with my hand, just above the dewclaw. That got her to lift a paw and I would reward her with "good shake".

Then I would offer my hand, palm up, and say "shake", while tapping the pastern with my other hand. Once the paw came up, I made contact with it with my open palm, and praise and pet her. (Since that worked as a reward.)

Then I started practicing the behavior before pleasant things - like going outside or getting to eat. I would have her sit, offer my hand, and say "shake". Then the pleasant thing after was the "reward".

Re: GIVE HER PAW

Sounds like you just need to connect the action to the reward a little closer. Treat goes in the mouth the instant the paw comes off the floor. You're using the treat just like you would a clicker--to mark the exact moment of success. Otherwise the dog doesn't have any idea what he's doing to earn the reward--since it could be any of a dozen things--sit? look at you? look away from you? wag? don't wag? open mouth? sniff? lick?

If you're rewarding after the shake is over, or rewarding the sniff or lick, then the dog's confused.

Start over.

Have the treat ready to go in your right hand.

Pick up the dog's right paw with your left hand while saying "shake"--and simultaneoulsy (or just an instant after) pop the treat in and praise.

Repeat a dozen times.

Very quickly, the dog WILL begin to anticipate...and the instant the dog voluntarily pics his paw up even just a teeny bit (he'll still be guessing at what you want, but will tentatively offer this gesture as one of the possibilities that will get the treat)--then give several treats and praise like he just cured cancer.

Sniffing, licking, barking, whistling Dixie---anything except picking up his paw should be ignored during the exercise. Any response to these behaviors will reinforce them.