Teach Your Dog To Shake

How to Teach a Dog to Shake


teach a dog to shakeOne of the first tricks you should teach your dog is to shake their paw. It's a great one to start with because it's really simple and there is not a lot to it. It also feels pretty natural for your dog because they are accustomed to using their paws to get things that they want.

Ideally, you want your dog to shake whenever you tell them to or whenever you hold your hand out to them. People love to see this trick and if you want to show them how smart your dog is you can quickly master this one. After you do, you can move on to more advanced dog tricks.

Do you need anything to start with your paw shaking trick? It's a lot easier if you have a clicker but you don't need one. Having treats is pretty essential, as dogs will do just about anything for food.

Just like other tricks, there are many ways you can go about teaching your dog to shake. There are all kinds of methods that professional trainers will employ, and they include free shaping, targeting, luring, and capturing. The beauty of the paw shaking trick though, is that you don't need to know what any of those are. The paw shaking dog trick is very simple, so we won't make things harder than they have to be!

Like I mentioned before, dogs naturally use their paws to get what they want. You might have noticed they use their paws to get your attention, or you might have noticed them using them when they play with their toys. Either way, you are just going to use this natural instinct during the training process.

Teaching your dog to shake is a great place to start and will train you in dog training. You will learn to start out with something very easy and slowly build on that. No matter what type of trick you are doing, this is how you'll approach it. This is how you advance to more challenging tricks as well. You and your dog will get accustomed to learning tricks that are increasingly more complicated.

How long does it take to teach your dog how to shake? Some dogs can pick it up very quickly, perhaps in as little as a couple days. Some dogs will take longer, but don't worry about that. Keep the training sessions short and fun for both of you and you'll enjoy the process regardless of how long it takes.

Steps to Teaching the Dog Shake

1. Have you dog sit down in front of you. Then take their paw in your hand and hold it for a short amount of time. While you do, give them a treat and use your clicker if you have one. You are just going to continue to repeat this step a couple of times. Remember, keeping the training session short and fun is important! This will help your dog to understand what you want from them.

2. Now that you have showed them how moving their paw is desirable, you are going to try to get them to do it with less effort on your part. The first thing you should do is simply touch their paw. If they move it a little bit toward you that is a good sign and you should give them a treat and use your clicker if you have one. What you are doing is slowly building the connection in your dog's mind between moving their paw and getting a tasty treat.

Don't forget to praise your dog when they do something right!

3. After you have practiced the second step for a fair amount of time and your dog is starting to pick it up, you are going to attach your command to it. Some people say, "shake" while others say, "paw." It's totally up to what you pick as long as you are consistent with it. For this step, you're basically going to do the same thing you did in step two while saying your word. So if you chose "shake" for example, you will say it right before touching your dog's paw. This will teach them to associate the word with the paw movement and the treat. Keep repeating it, and it will make the association much stronger.

You're almost done!

4. As your dog starts to get better with the trick, you should try to use treats some of the time and do the trick without treats some of time. You don't want your do to get into the habit of only doing tricks when there will be a reward. Mix it up, and you will eventually be able to get them to do it for you any time you want.

If you really want your dog to get good at paw shaking (or any trick, for that matter), you should try doing it in different places that have new distractions. This will really test what your dog has learned and help you understand what you need to work on.

 


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