Today, I’m gonna show you how to teach your dog to shake hands. Ricky Jr. has been borrowed him from the Jefferson Parish animal shelter. Here in New Orleans, he was picked up as a stray a few weeks ago and he’s just been adopted, so we’re gonna give him a little bit of training to get him off to a great start.
How to Teach Your Dog to Shake Hands With a Clicker
We’re gonna be using a clicker to teach Ricky Jr. to shake hands or give paw. I find that using a clicker can really deliver fast results, especially if you’re a beginner. This sound to Ricky Jr. is gonna mean good dog. A delicious treat is on its way now. This whole concept just takes a second to teach your dog.
If you successfully teach your dog how to give paw or how to shake, you’re not just teaching a cool fun trick, but you’re really broadening your communication with them and that’s why we do things like this. The benefit of clicker training is that it allows you to have precision timing so that the moment your dog is even a little bit on the right track. You can get traction and bring out the behavior. You want more quickly from the inside out.
So the first thing I want to do is teach Ricky Jr. what this click actually means so, every time I click I’m just going to follow it up with a reward. You can see how, after doing this a few times, the dog is going to start to make the connection.
When I hear that sound, I get an amazing awesome, treat use really small, really good tasting, treats too that’s important. You don’t want your dog to fill up, because you want the option to click them and give them lots of rewards over a period of time. Now you could use really good soft dog treats for this or you could use something like real meat or real chicken.
I’m gonna click that you can see in his eyes. Look at that he’s really making the connection and looking, at my other hand where the treats are coming from. He is a bright boy. Now my job is to get Ricky Jr. to move his paw. Any way that I can now an important note here simply grabbing there.
There are several ways you can go about doing this. The first thing you could try to do is maybe tickle their paws. If you can get really good at identifying those tiny moments of progress, you’re gonna do really well.
So Ricky Jr. is really catching on quick. Let’s go over another way that you can encourage your dog to give their paws. He does know a sit really good. I’m gonna click him and reward him because he did something I’d like and now I’m gonna kind of lure him off the ground and see if he lifts either of those paws. Yes, good job, and so we’re just gonna acknowledge. Look at that right. There, if you might notice, I’m not saying shake or give paw. We’re gonna do that when the behavior becomes a little bit more reliable in a second.
How to Teach Your Dog to Shake a Paw
If you have a young puppy, especially or really inquisitive dog, sometimes dogs will use their paws to interact with the world, and you might find that just simply showing them a treat like this and waiting a minute. They may actually start pawing at the treat at which time you can click it, even if it’s an accident on their part, it’s great to still acknowledge that they’re doing something you like. So I’m letting them see the treat and we’re just seeing if he’s gonna move those paws at all. Whoa, that’s what I’m talking about.
Yes, good nice work. I love the magnetic clip on this treat. Pouch too, you can really start to see how he’s comprehending that? Oh, if I do this, the clicker goes off and I get paid and he’s really into it. So therefore he’s more likely to repeat the behavior only when you’re pretty confident that your dog is going to offer the behavior you want.
Do you then begin to introduce the word that you’re trying to teach them so it goes like this good shake. Nice work. I mean you can teach this in minutes with many dogs.
Now, let’s see if we can get him to do it, when we just ask and give him the treat afterwards shake. Rather than saying – shake shake shake, you could see it in his eyes. He was thinking about it and it’s important to kind of let your dog think it through in those cases, rather than muddying up your communication and shake other hand.
You fancy and the dextrous dog he’s demonstrating why shelter dogs can be some of the best dogs in the world found as a stray and look, how quickly he’s learning a new trick just a few minutes – that’s all it takes.
This is only the beginning, though. Once you teach your dog shake, there’s a million things you can teach your dog.
If you think Ricky Jr. learned how to shake like a pro today, shake yes and share this article. To see what else you can learn, how to teach your dog, pick up a copy of our dog training revolution for a more complete dog training experience that was excellent.
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