Post by Aussienot on Apr 7, 2004 17:58:51 GMT -5
I mentioned in another post that I had started to teach the paw lift with Sailor. With Sailor in heel position, I lean over and pick up her right paw and at the same time I lift up my right foot. Then I pick up her left paw as I lift up my left foot. Praise and repeat a few times.
After three sessions, I am getting some sparks of understanding, and some isolated independent paw lifts. I believe that sooner or later she'll get it using my improvised method. 30 million lifts later . . . .
However, thinking that there had to be a better way, I took a chance and e-mailed a question into a website.
Here's the reply I received.
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To teach the basic move, you start by picking up a paw or getting the dog to hit your open hand with a paw and then you reward with a food treat from the other hand.
*TIP* Start with one paw at a time, and use different commands for each paw(eg - "wave" = left paw, "foot" = right paw)
When the dog is happy lifting up his paws, work on standing up and getting the dogs to give paws from the front and from the heel position. As with any move, spend a lot of time on the basics which will help you when you want to progress.
Now stand in front of you dog and ask for a paw showing it your hand but hold your hand just out of its reach, if using a clicker, click this and reward as the dog should have put it paw up high. When the dog can raise paws with out him touching your hand then you can move onto the next stage.
This is where you go back down in front of him and turn your hand so that he now has to touch your hand with the fingers facing upwards rather than downwards i.e. imagine waving at the dog. When the dog is proficient at touching the upturned hand with the paw then kneel a bit further form the dog and wave at him and hold the hand slightly higher than the paw.
Basically now the dog should be putting its paw up when you show it your hand and then it’s just a case of building up distance from the dog. This move certainly gets an "ahhh" from the crowd as a very cute move.
Important to note here though that I have found that the style is dog dependent; what I mean by this is that some dog naturally raise their legs high but others only seem to bring it up half way. The less showy dogs I would advise you to concentrate more on the single leg up in the heel position whilst you kick legs as this looks better with that kind of dog. If you ever see me with both my border collies ask me to show you the difference in the paw lift as each of my collies has a different paw lift.
Regards,
Stephen
After three sessions, I am getting some sparks of understanding, and some isolated independent paw lifts. I believe that sooner or later she'll get it using my improvised method. 30 million lifts later . . . .
However, thinking that there had to be a better way, I took a chance and e-mailed a question into a website.
Here's the reply I received.
----------------------------------------------------------
To teach the basic move, you start by picking up a paw or getting the dog to hit your open hand with a paw and then you reward with a food treat from the other hand.
*TIP* Start with one paw at a time, and use different commands for each paw(eg - "wave" = left paw, "foot" = right paw)
When the dog is happy lifting up his paws, work on standing up and getting the dogs to give paws from the front and from the heel position. As with any move, spend a lot of time on the basics which will help you when you want to progress.
Now stand in front of you dog and ask for a paw showing it your hand but hold your hand just out of its reach, if using a clicker, click this and reward as the dog should have put it paw up high. When the dog can raise paws with out him touching your hand then you can move onto the next stage.
This is where you go back down in front of him and turn your hand so that he now has to touch your hand with the fingers facing upwards rather than downwards i.e. imagine waving at the dog. When the dog is proficient at touching the upturned hand with the paw then kneel a bit further form the dog and wave at him and hold the hand slightly higher than the paw.
Basically now the dog should be putting its paw up when you show it your hand and then it’s just a case of building up distance from the dog. This move certainly gets an "ahhh" from the crowd as a very cute move.
Important to note here though that I have found that the style is dog dependent; what I mean by this is that some dog naturally raise their legs high but others only seem to bring it up half way. The less showy dogs I would advise you to concentrate more on the single leg up in the heel position whilst you kick legs as this looks better with that kind of dog. If you ever see me with both my border collies ask me to show you the difference in the paw lift as each of my collies has a different paw lift.
Regards,
Stephen