Well we have mastered both "Touch" and "Paw"
He will paw touch my hand to the hand signal in any position he can reach so i know he knows the signal.
There is no command attached to it at all yet.

I thought about giving the Paw signal and only clicking for the left, and once he was reliable with the left only paw, adding the Command Left to it. But then how on earth do you move to right.

Should I be teaching my left, or his left? Since we are facing each other when we work? But eventually will be facing the same direction and biking or scootering together.

Also, he knows paw now which is either, and im going to teach Left paw/Right Paw, will that then translate to left/turn right turn, or to move in that direction etc, which would be useful for agility and biking or scootering.

Ok, I reread. My bad.

No, teaching right paw left paw will not translate into turn right or turn left, they are completely seperate actions to the dog, they don't know that left is left, period, or right is right, period. They only know that when you say left they should move left.

For the paws - I use Paw and Other One. When facing the dog, Paw means the dogs left/my right, and Other One means the dogs left/my right.

What I do is hold the dogs paw in my hand, on my palm and say "Paw! Good paw!" While moving my hand slightly with the paw in it and touching the paw with the thumb of that hand to have a physical connection between the word and the paw in the hand. Then I teach Other One the same way, just holding the paw and moving it slightly with a "Other One! Good Other One!"

But these are kept in seperate sessions and I don't ask for it for a while. I also tend not to recommend this trick for young pups as one of their first things to learn - it is fun, it is cute, but it encourages pawing when the pup is excited and becomes a favorite behavior to throw when the dog is excited.

Im not sure lol, that was a confused sort of post wasnt it!

Id like to teach him left from right in a way that will be useful in the long run. Because frankly I dont care which hand he shakes with, But i thought that either using paw or the touch signal would be a good place to start working on left/right

So I guess Im wondering whether or not learning left from right in one behavior would make it possible to then more easily chain left or right together with another behavior.

But dogs dont generalize well...

I think im over anazalyzing this and making it more complicated than it needs to be,
with the other dogs they have learned to look or go the direction I am pointing, but thats an organic sort of learning and not an actual "trained" behavior that would be useful during any sort of activity like biking or agility.

 Quote: jennifer lee

Also, he knows paw now which is either, and im going to teach Left paw/Right Paw, will that then translate to left/turn right turn, or to move in that direction etc, which would be useful for agility and biking or scootering.

I could be wrong, but I don't think teaching "left paw" and "right paw" will translate into directional movement when you're out biking with him - directions are a little abstract vs. actions, so while you can teach lifting one foot or the other, or GOING one way or the other, your dog won't connect that "left" applies to everything on that side of his body. They are separate actions to the dog.

Not to say that teaching all kinds of things that deal with lefts and rights isn't easily possible, just that they're probably all specific sets of instructions that the dog learns separately.

~Natalya

*Sorry, Jennifer M beat me to that! Sorry to sound redundant!

Edited by Natalya Zahn (01/13/2008 05:55 PM)
Edit reason: I'm a chronically slow poster!

Ah Ok. Yeah I read the post again and I was like Duh Jenn...



I generally wait to teach left and right until the dog is old enough for a structured walk/heel work. I teach the directions during the heel on a training walk. Usually when the dog is around 6-7 months. I don't intro a bike or rollerblades until the dog is around 8-9 months and no real hardcore runs just slow stuff until at least a year.

I know some people teach direction with a spin but I find it just teaches the dog to spin in a circle and is not helpful on a walk or with a bike etc.

P.S. HAHA I flubbed. Paw means My right/dogs left, Other One means My Left/Dogs Right. I can never type that right.

we arent starting the bike or the scooter or any sort of running I was just thinking ahead and trying to come up with new stuff to teach him that might actually prove useful in the future.
The closest thing to a structured walk is me stopping everytime the leash gets tight.

We might just hold off on that and do place, and off as in off the table, off the couch, off the cat, off loki..he is a climber and a flopper...both of which should be pretty easy

I taught paw because he automatically lifted it when he wanted something, and since I am only rewarding him when I ask for the paw he is doing it less it was cute and a preventative measure.

Loki is a pawer and it drove me nuts and took forever to break the habit, now he will off when i tell him and then i ask him for his paw...puts me in control of the behavior

Oh I know what you mean Jennifer, trying to teach a word in order to control the behavior such as the bark, no bark. I teach paw/other one, bark, growl etc but I choose to do it after the pups are more mature and my groundwork OB has been established. When my high energy pups are taught paw that is the first thing they want to do if I have something they want - they start throwing behaviors whether what I have is for them or not.

My issue is mostly with the Paw/Other Paw/Shake command as it is a natural play behavior with puppies. You will often see them initiate play by pawing at/on/in the direction of a playmate/littermate and then playbow. They also scuffle and have "boxing" matches. Us encouraging them pawing is out of order - when a pup paws at babysitter or mom or dad, it may be tolerated for a bit but they let the pup know when they've had enough sass.

I learned the hard way with a couple of pups that for a high energy, intelligent pup, paw is the last thing I teach!

P.S. Regarding left and right, I think he is probably too young at the moment. I would wait until his focus is better. Just IMO though

Edited by Jennifer Marshal (01/13/2008 10:26 PM)
Edit reason: P.S.

I totally agree with the not encouraging stuff like pawing,a fter the fat lips I got several times from loki slapping a paw across my face when I was laying on the couch, I decided to take over the pawing right away.
Hopefully I didnt create a problem. Although his first response when he wants something is to ram into me, or do a firm nudge with his eyebrow area.
Maybe I will not do Paw anymore and see if he phases it out.

I taught Levi to say please...not a good call. He knew Speak but that was a different command, unrelated to him actually wanting anything.
It was so cute until he started with please, pleeeeeaaseeeee PUUUULEEEZE!!!! for evey damn thing he wanted. Not thinking, I taught him to be noisy and he would get what he wanted.

Maybe not such a problem in quiter breeds but OH Lawd the racket he would make with the wooing and howling and that high pitched Yip. He would sit in front of me and have a total temper tantrum...and it was so hard not to laugh at it.

Fargo discovered table tops today, so "Off" has been moved to the front of the list.