I believe it was Lou Castle that taught me how to teach my dog to "shake"... He said to press the dogs shoulder till his paw comes off the ground, then give him a treat... I had spent months trying to teach this to my dog without success, he never pawed at anything, he didn't understand why i was picking up his leg, but he understood this method within 3 or 4 repetitions and associating it with a word... this quickly, almost automatically, let me teach him "point" where I hold a treat in one hand n have him point at which hand it's in.

Every day, several times a day, I spend 5-10 minutes to go thru a random sequence with him on obedience where I take 1 hotdog, then very quickly, very enthusiastically have him do sit/down/stay/come/come to me and sit/come to me and lay down/sit from a distance/down from a distance/speak/heel/shake etc... either with hand signals, spoken word or both. I don't have hand signals for everything though.

I taught him to GET UP from his down into a sit position by doing almost the "doggy yoyo", I basically have him sit/down/sit/down/sit/down 3+ times. He isn't particularly quick at it, he doesn't down square, his hips are off to the side and I haven't managed to fix it yet, so getting back into a sit position isn't a "jumping" motion as I have seen some dogs (especially mal's) do.

If I get too lazy to put my hand out for a "shake", I just stand there and say "shake" n he raises his paw, if he doesn't raise it high enough I tell him "no, shake!" n he raises it higher, I am sure I could turn this into a Wave command, but the method I used with pushing his shoulder to raise his paw worked perfectly for this.

I can't balance a treat on his nose, but I can wave a treat in front of him all day long n poke at his nose with it n he won't take it, it's something about my body language, he can tell the difference between when I'm taunting him and he can't have it, and when he's done something to deserve what I'm holding out for him. I taught him to not snap at treats simply to save my own fingers, it was one of the first things I taught him.

Have you taught her how to high five yet? If you teach the high five and then say "wave" while not quite letting them touch your hands,which are in high five position, they seem to catch on pretty quick. Our therapy dog ended up waving while sitting up. He`s really good at balancing. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

No - I didn't teach high five or shake. Just wave.

I teach paw in a few minutes by pushing the side of the dog's muzzle with my palm several times to annoy him (gently eh). Paw comes up, "Good dog!", treat. Works with cats too. The shoulder thing never works for me either.

Then I teach the beg, which is somewhat harder...get the dog to come up for a treat while sitting without jumping. Usually I do this in corners until he gets the idea and starts to balance himself.

Wave is easy after he gets both down. Just ask him to wave, make the signal for paw, and then keep going higher so he thinks it's beg. When dog does both, mark it and praise.