Babara Bush
Teaching a dog to serve one of its front paws is not difficult at all. Pets themselves willingly give their paws when they want to attract attention or as a signal of pacification-reconciliation.
While this trick may seem simple, there are several ways to do it. We will teach the dog to take turns serving both front paws so that later we can play “okay” with it.
Teaching a Dog to Give a Paw
Prepare a dozen pieces of pet food for the dog, call the dog, sit it in front of you and sit in front of it yourself. You can sit on a chair. Give the dog the command “Give a paw!” and stretch out the open palm of your right hand to her, just to the right of her left paw, at a height that is comfortable for the dog.
Hold your palm in this position for a couple of seconds, then gently take the dog’s left paw with your right hand, lift it off the floor, and immediately release it. As soon as you let go of the paw, immediately praise the dog with affectionate words and feed him a couple of scraps of food. Try to keep the dog sitting while doing this.
Give the dog the command “Give your paw!” Again, but this time extend your left palm slightly to the left of its right paw. Hold your palm for a couple of seconds, then gently take the dog’s right paw with your left hand, lift it off the floor, and immediately release it. As soon as you let go of the paw, praise your dog with affectionate words and feed him a couple of treats.
Repeat the exercise with your right or left hand until you feed all the prepared pieces of food. Take a break from training and play with your dog. During the day or evening, while you are at home, you can repeat the exercise 10 to 15 times.
Separate commands – to give the right or left paw – are not at all necessary. The dog will raise this or that paw depending on which palm you hold out to it.
Train, from class to class, raising the dog’s paws higher and higher and holding them in your palms for longer. As a result, many dogs begin to understand that by holding out his palm, the owner will now grab his paw, and only then will he treat him with something tasty. And they begin to get ahead of the events and put their paws on the palm.
But some dogs believe that if you need a paw so much, then make it yourself. There is a special technique for such animals. We give the command, stretch out the palm and, if the dog does not put his paw on it, with the same hand lightly, at the level of the wrist joint, knock the corresponding paw towards ourselves so that the dog lifts it. Immediately we substitute our palm under it and praise the dog.
In a couple of weeks, if, of course, you practice every day, you will train the dog to give its front paws on command.
Let’s Play “Okay”?
In order to teach a dog to play “okay”, a command with a voice is not needed, the command will be a demonstrative (in a big way) presentation of one or another palm. But if you wish, you can cheerfully say “Okay!” Before the game. It won’t hurt.
So, cheerfully, with a lift, they said the magic word “okay” and pointedly gave the dog their right palm. As soon as she gives her paw, let her go down and praise the dog. Immediately demonstratively, in a big way, we present our left palm, etc.
In the first lesson, reinforce each feed of the paw by feeding a piece of food, in the next lessons, switch to the probabilistic mode: praise after three times, then after 5, after 2, after 7, etc.
Get the dog to give you its paws ten times without reward, that is, to play with you “okay”. Well, and as soon as you get dog paws ten times, immediately arrange a fun holiday for the dog with feeding and playing.