don't stop at shake: the power of the paw
Shake is probably one of the most basic commands a dog could learn. However, the problem is, many of us teach our dogs this behavior and leave it at is. It may have been unnatural for your dog to interact with you with a paw in the beginning. After repititions, your dog learned what you wanted and now that reflex is second nature. Shouldn't we taking advantage of that to teach our dogs more paw-related tricks?
Here are just a few of them!
- High five
- Wave
- Pray
- Paws on me (almost like your dog is hugging you)
- Footstall (where your dog stands on your shoes while you lie on your back)
I may write posts on teaching these individual behaviors, but I just wanted to get this brief post out to encourage you not to stop at shake. There's so much more your dog can do with the learned behavior of communicating with you with his paw, don't stop now!
Wow this is a good post Robin!! BUT I have to tell you some of us doggies (*cough - don' t look at me..) can be very stubborn when it comes to learning tricks.
ReplyDeleteI am extremely good at High Five - but won't do anything else... can you teach us the wave signal? That would be PAWSOME!!
Lots of licks, your new friend Morrie :)
That's cool. Oreo knows no tricks and doesn't want too lol
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