Teaching to give a paw...

Ok I know this probably sounds quite simple and I'm sure it is...

I taught Kestral to give a paw and high five, and cross her paws using a mix of shaping/target training.
For paw I had food in closed hand and clicked when she pawed at it and went from there..

I was trying to teach the little gsd pup to give a paw today but she does not naturally lift her paws at all. She is reasonably food motivated but prefers just to lie down - she will lick and muzzle but no paw movement.

So..any other ways of teaching it?!

with mine i tended to lift the paw in my hand and treat and say paw at the same time, do this enough times, and they start to lift the paw to put in your hand all on their own along with the command, thats how i taught both my gsd's

Treat in closed hand, move towards nose at nose height and lift slightly to one side of nose but close to it ---dog should lift paw a fraction---click and treat.

rune

I don't know if it's the same with your dogs but Izzy copies Parker so when she sees him doing the left paw, right paw trick she does it too!

Thanks, I might give that a go.. I wasn't sure whether that would just be rewarded for letting you touch the paw, but I guess if they begin to pre-empt it then it could work

Thanks, I tried all variations of hand movement etc but she just snuffles at it and lies down. She lies down an awful lot.. between any command she just lies on the floor.. is this normal? She is not tired as she's happy to charge around playing with toys, perhaps she is just not motivated ENOUGH for the food?
I will have another go, but the dog really needs to be sitting or standing as its not easy to lift the paw otherwise!

Thanks, Kestral shows of her tricks but the GSDs just a tiny pup and just wants to bite Kestral's face !!! Impressive Izzy caught on so quick though

Probably her default behaviour for when she is a bit confused.

I'd do lots of things she is happy with for a few days.

rune

Did I miss something? Do you have a puppy? Or is this someone elses pup you're trying to teach things to?

How about just clicking and treating for any paw movement at all without trying to entice her to actually give paw? Or something like 101 things to do with a box and reward her for pawing that? Get her offering paw movements for a reward before trying to get a specific behaviour. Is she clicker savvy? If not then I'd start with some easier to get behaviours first to teach her what it's all abotu and come back to this later to be honest.

i should have added that i said paw as i was lifting the paw rather than saying it once the paw is at a certain height.

as for the lying down thing, my ty does this constantly and has done since he was a pup (i got him at 10 weeks) he lies down to eat his food, drink water, just because he could, i just took it as he was a lazy pup. Though at 1 and a half he was diagnosed with HD, I'm not saying this to scare anyone as i don't know if his was hereditary, environmental, or a mix of both, but because of this i have erred on the side of caution with xeva when it comes to exercise

but it's more likely to be what rune has said a default behavior

Thanks, I only see her once a week and they seem to be training her quite well, she is happy with sit, down and stay.
But in between everything she likes to lie down - it seems to be her favourite behavior and she is not always motivated enough to move from it!
Might just give paw a miss until shes older or shows interest in it.

Haha no you didn't miss anything, it's my OHs families new dog. We go to visit her every week when we are over to take Roxy out for a walk, so I get to see a little pup
They just asked how to teach a few tricks and wanted to start with paw..

Thanks for the idea about offering the behavior with a box or similar, sounds a good suggestion.
She seems to be getting the hang of the clicker, might just suggest they work on a few other things before the paw if its not something that is coming naturally to her.

Thanks, yes she's exactly the same, lies down to drink etc too!
Parents had good hip scores and I have warned them to be very careful with exercise, but I'm sorry to hear Ty was diagnosed so young It is a worry isn't it


Thanks for all replies. I will suggest they stick to things she is happy with at the moment and work on tricks that she offers more naturally. She seemed to be more keen on rollover so maybe give that a try first

I was all ways told the way to do it was to lift the paw, saw paw and then treat and then repeat the action but so far have been unsucessfull I may give the closed hand one a try as Millie like to get things with her paws and see if that works.