How to teach a dog the “Paw” command?

Despite the fact that this trick seems simple, there are several ways to perform it. We will teach the dog to give both front paws in turn, so that later we can play “patricks” with it.

Teaching a dog to give a paw

Prepare a dozen pieces of tasty food for the dog, call the dog, sit it in front of you and sit down in front of it yourself. You can also sit on a chair. Give the dog the command “Give paw!” and stretch out the open palm of your right hand to her, just to the right of her left paw, at a height comfortable for the dog.

Hold your palm in this position for a couple of seconds, then gently grab the dog’s left paw with your right hand, tear it off the floor and immediately release. As soon as you let go of the paw, immediately praise the dog with affectionate words and feed him a couple of pieces of food. Try to keep the dog sitting while doing this.

Again give the dog the command “Give paw!”, but this time stretch out your left palm to the dog a little to the left of his right paw. Hold the palm for a couple of seconds, then gently take the dog’s right paw with your left hand, tear it off the floor and immediately release it. As soon as you let go of the paw, praise the dog with affectionate words and feed him a couple of pieces of treats.

Repeat the exercise with your right hand, then with your 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 a paw right or left – are not at all obligatory. The dog will raise one or another paw depending on which palm you stretch out to it.

Train, from lesson to lesson, raising the dog’s paws higher and longer and holding them longer in your palms. As a result, many dogs begin to understand that by stretching out their hand, the owner will now grab her paw and only then treat him to something tasty. And they begin to get ahead of events and put their paws on their palms.

But some dogs believe that if you really need a paw, then take it yourself. For such animals there is a special technique. We give a command, stretch out the palm and, if the dog does not put its paw on it, with the same hand lightly, at the level of the carpal joint, we knock the corresponding paw towards us so that the dog raises it. We immediately put 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 serve its front paws on command.

Shall we play patty?

In order to teach a dog to play “patties”, a voice command is not needed, the command will be a demonstrative (in a big way) presentation of one or another palm. But if you wish, before the game you can cheerfully say: “Okay!”. It won’t hurt.

So, cheerfully, with enthusiasm, they said the magic word “patties” and defiantly gave the dog the right palm. As soon as she gives her paw, lower it and praise the dog. Immediately demonstratively, on a grand scale, present the left palm, etc.

In the first session, reinforce each paw delivery with a piece of food, in the following sessions, switch to a probabilistic mode: praise after three times, then after 5, after 2, after 7, etc.

Get the dog to give you paws ten times without reward, that is, to play “patty” with you. Well, as soon as you get dog paws ten times, immediately arrange a fun holiday for the dog with feeding and playing.