This video is a how to video on how to teach your dog to target an object with his front paws. This is not only a great game to teach your puppy or dog how to learn to learn, but it is the foundation for many behaviors and tricks. Tricks with this foundation include- wave, shake , high five, standing up, hands up, close the door, cop cop, say your prayers, descrimination, freestyle foot work and more.
Check out zsianz1 's video on how to teach a high five using this technique!
Take care with large breed dogs or dogs who have sharp toe nails as you can get slapped. Perhaps teach shake down the line when you have more experience as a trainer so that your large dog doesnt learn to paw at you as their favorite behavior. The great thing about the technique that I am using is that the dog isnt learning to paw at your skin, but at an object, so you can get that on stimulus control before it is just your arm (for very large and powerful dog breeds). You can also click them fore being gentle before you switch to using just your hand for shake.
Happy Training!
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Great clip, with tips that I hadn’t seen before. Thanks for showing us so clearly!
Sounds like a nice fun easy one for Piper, she’ll love learning this! And I’m guessing this targeting can be useful for other tricks you might want to teach in the future?
Thanks for the video!
great video, I saw you showing the foot target on a video you made ages ago and that is how I found out how to train Holly cross paws 🙂 that seem such a long time ago now! the foot target is so helpful for training so many things, I just love how you break things down, so easy to follow! I was just about to make a video on high five but you really covered it so well here already, we are all so lucky that you post these amazing videos 🙂
Very systematically explained! 5 stars!
another great video. Concise and well-explained. I’m really looking forward to following along as you train your new pup.
WHAT an ADORABLE puppy, VERY CUTE! Great video and great tutorial, and such a useful skill, thanks for posting!
Thanks! I tried this and in five minutes he was scooting across the floor to put his paw on it! This is so much fun for the dog too 🙂 My favorite part was when he was ‘down’ and putting his paw on it, and I scooted it a little out of his reach, thinking he would get up to paw it, and instead he reached over and grabbed it with his mouth, dragged it back, then slapped a paw on it and looked up at me like ‘how’d you like that?’! I just LOLd! He’s so lazy!
You should still make it! as people might not know how to progress. Even if you made a targeting video, the more the better, especially when people SEE that it works with ALL dogs not just one. 🙂
OMG, Tug is incredibly cute! Ahh!
Great work, and great tutorial!
Very well made!
Can’t wait to see more of Tug!
5*s!
Yippi; I used this tutorial to teach paw and then progressed to Shake and High five on the second session. Tipsy loved it. She has been so mouthy that I think it was an amazing surprise for her to use her paws.
this are great videos!! i love how you show the process clean and with an untrained dog, a lot of other videos use dog that are already trained. keep making videos!!
Great job! I just recently stumbled upon your videos and they are all awesome and very clearly explained. I tried this with my puppy and within minutes he caught on. At first he rolled over 15 times in a row and then barked at me but once he figured it out he was so eager to touch the target. I hope you do this for a living because you’re very talented! ☺
So helpful. I used this to get my puppy Liberty to shake. She caught on so fast.
Some dogs are sensitive to physical correction (not rough, just touches.) for instance a cocker spaniel will bite if they feel like you’re touching them in the wrong way.
This tutorial is good to teach touch-sensitive dogs like cockers and others how to shake. Another tutorial about how to shake said to pick up your dog’s paw and shake it and say “good boy/girl.” a cocker probably wudnt like that.
Thanks for posting such informative and inspiring videos. I taught my dog to target with each paw and we are ready for a verbal cue for each paw. I looked for another of your videos to teach him this but couldn’t find it, can you give me advice for a verbal cue for each paw? Thanks!
I just read an article about a seminar you had in Sweden and have spend all afternoon looking to your videos. They are rellay good and I use the same methods as you. My 4 month old golden retiever puppy loves this kind of activitys and really want to learn new things, and when I get my clicker she start to try things. So fantastic to see. Thank you for all the pedagogic videos.
Just saying you do some awesome videos! I did this for about 15 minutes with my dog using real meat so he didn’t get bored and he was already pawing at the target in the air when I moved it. 😉 He’s a border collie so that could help as well, but only 10 weeks old! Thanks!!
Loved this video. I’ve tried everything to get my dog to pick up his paw, and this really works well.
Thanks for the tip about making sure you train both paws! Great advice. Now that this video is 9 years old would you teach this behaviour the same way now? Just curious 🙂 Thanks as always for your wonderful videos.
Yes, but I am a lot more calm when training puppies or new dogs when learning new behaviors. Here is a fun trick once you get the paw work if you have a little dog – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_aTBMKgOO7w
Took about 5 minutes for my 2yo pit/boxer to catch on also! Wanted to target train her for buttons and it was a lot easier than I thought it’d be. Dogs will do anything for treats 😂