How to teach a dog to give a paw, methods and exercises for training a team, timing of dog training

The dog command to give a paw is one of the most common, along with Aport and Fas. Most people, when purchasing a pet, are interested in how to teach him to give a paw and follow other commands. So, today we will tell you how to train your pet to give a paw.

Why does a dog need the command “Give a paw”?

Many mistakenly believe that the owner taught the dog to give a paw only for indicative reasons, so that, if the opportunity arises, guests and friends could demonstrate the degree of learning of the animal and say: “Look, look what I taught him.” But this is not the case, as the team has other practical functions:

• examination of limbs and wool in hard-to-reach places;
• dressing the pet when necessary;
• wiping dirty limbs;
• cutting the claws of an animal.

When to start training?

Along with the question of how to teach a dog to give a paw, most people are interested in when such training should begin.

So, you need to teach a dog to feed a paw from about four or five months. However, in some cases, capable puppies are able to carry out this command by two. It is necessary to train an animal to give a limb only after it has learned the commands “Sit” and “Come to me” and is able to distinguish the owner’s voice.

A prerequisite for learning is calm and good mood at the dog. If your pet is excited or annoyed by something, then it is better to postpone training until a more appropriate moment.

Training methods and options

When your dog recognizes the “Sit” command, call him to your side and say loudly and clearly “Paw out”, after which lift her right limb to the height of the horizontal line from the side of the shoulder and quickly lower. Then, as a reward, give the dog something tasty.

Another method is to hold a piece of something tasty in your palm and prevent the animal from unclenching it with its nose. After an unsuccessful attempt to take a treat, it will try to do it with the help of its limb, at this moment you open your palm, say “Give a paw” and feed the long-awaited food to the animal. And so repeat several times.

If the dog doesn’t do anything on the command “Paw out” after you yourself have tried to lift it, take its limb again and direct it towards your hand so that the animal puts the limb into your hand. Given the exercise should be done several timesso that the dog remembers the algorithm of actions. Over time, the pet will understand it on its own without your help.

When the command to give the paw is brought to mind, then the exercise can be improved by the command “Give the second paw”. At first, you will need to put in some effort through the use of treats to encourage action or by lifting the dog’s other limb on its own. However, as a rule, retraining is much faster initial and the dog learns this command quickly enough.

Rewarding with goodies is very important after the correct execution of the command at first, but then it should be reduced and gradually reduced to zero when the habit of giving a limb on command becomes maximally entrenched in the animal.

When training and self-raising dog limbs, be extremely careful and do not injure the animal, do not allow it to have pain as a result of training, otherwise you will not be able to work with it normally later.

So, the exercises should be performed, taking into account the following recommendations:

• when you want to teach a dog to feed both paws in turn, then distinguish between commands. For example, after the phrase “Give a paw” should be followed by “Give a second paw.” Otherwise, the dog will learn to serve only one limb;
• try to perform the exercise in the position of the animal sitting, standing and lying down;
• training needs to be diversified so that the dog can give a paw not only when you are directly in front of her eyes, but also lie next to her;
• try to teach the dog to follow the command without support, so that the paw hangs in the air, or use other parts of your body instead of arms instead of support.

Learning Rules

Before you start teaching your pet this command, read the rules for training the animal:

• keep pauses between workouts, do not spend them too long so that the dog is not tired;
• practice training during the game so that the animal is accompanied by positive emotions;
• over time, the command can be reduced to index signs, pointing the animal to one or another paw so that it raises it;
• when training, one should not forget about the encouragement of each action;
• the second limb should be given only when the first is lowered;
• reduce the amount of goodies as a reward gradually, a sharp reduction can adversely affect the learning process.

As you can see, there is nothing difficult in training dogs and developing commands, however, the training process should be given enough time. So your dog will learn over time all known commands and will be most obedient to you.