The Paw-sitive Pros and Cons of Teaching Your Dog to Give a Paw
This past weekend I decided to take Beck out for a little social adventure to help her get used to the hustle and bustle of the world. We needed dog food, so we headed over to Tabby and Jack's. Beck was a hit, charming quite a few people, including a lovely couple we met. The wife, bending down with a warm smile, immediately asked Beck to 'shake'. It’s such a common request from strangers when they meet a new pup! I smiled and replied, 'She doesn't know that trick yet, but here’s one she does know.' With that, I showed the delighted woman how impressively Beck can 'spin'.
Whether you teach your dog 'paw,' 'shake,' or even a 'fist bump,' it's all the same action: puppy lifts a paw into your waiting hand. When it comes to goldendoodle puppies--and often many other puppy breeds, teaching your puppy to give you their paw could actually result in some rather frustrating outcomes. In this post, I'll discuss the pros and cons of teaching your dog 'paw' and why I recommend you wait.
We Love Paw!
Owners, friends, and even strangers love the paw command. It's adorable! A squishy puppy offering a handshake to someone?! We love it! Though traditional basic puppy kindergarten rarely teaches this command, it is common for owners to push through and teach their pups early. However, teaching this command to a young puppy often results in a frustrated puppy and a frustrated owner.
You see, once puppy learns to give you his paw, he NEVER stops! Every time you're trying to teach puppy another command or work on old tricks, he begins to automatically give you his paw. Goldendoodles love to use their feet and they excitedly offer them up for a tasty treat. Once you teach 'paw' this is your puppy's latest go to in an attempt to receive his reward. And when working through a sequence of commands, he is sure to offer it even when not requested. Puppy is excited and will throw his whole bag of tricks at you to get that tasty morsel! Likely you are offering a visual cue with each verbal command for your puppy. We use our hands, often as a flat palm for many visuals for puppy. And he is so quick to perform that the presence of hand even remotely palm up and flattened is his cue to give you his little paw.
This ultimately makes your job harder to redirect puppy away from paw and to the command you truly want. It creates more mistakes in the command sequence which disrupts the neural process to cement the cue with the correct action. It also leads to frustration: puppy gets frustrated because he gave you his paw and he's not getting fed, and you're frustrated because that wasn't what you asked for.
Useful Tool
Don't get me wrong. I LOVE paw. It's adorable! But it's also a useful command for you to teach your dog.
For example, I use paw to work on cooperative care with my dogs. Giving me their front feet results in a reward. It allows me the chance to play with their feet while they cooperate which gets them used to me examining them. Eventually, I work in this command for regular nail trims. This also helps your groomer be more successful trimming your dogs nails. Cooperative care results in less trauma and stress for your dog.
A second example, is wiping your dog's feet when they come inside on a muddy day. I hate mud, rain, and snow getting tracked into my kitchen. So each of my dogs have been trained to come inside, sit, and allow me to wipe their feet with a towel. It is a wonderful command to keep my floors clean and my socks dry!
When to Teach Paw
My suggestion is to wait until your puppy is a little bit more mature before teaching paw. Instead of this command being the 3rd trick they learn, put it towards the bottom of the list. Beck is is 6 months old and she still hasn't learned it yet. I watch her constantly using her feet, especially to jump on me, and decided that she isn't quite ready for the command yet. I still touch her feet and wipe them at the door. I recognized this was a process and that she doesn't need to learn everything at once. I can add steps and grow the routine I want her to know over time. One day I'll teach her to give me her 'paw', but when I do it'll be with intention to use it as part of a broader command and not just for the purpose of a cute trick. And until then, she isn't grabbing at me the moment my hand is down at paw level which makes training more successful.
There isn't a specific age at which paw can be taught. Just be thoughtful and watch how your puppy grows and responds to various stimuli.
Need a cute trick in the meantime for your friends and strangers? Try teaching spin instead. It's adorable and people love it! And it builds on the command for luring, a very important and useful skill for your dog to master.
Leave me your comments and thoughts below!
What else can you teach your dog before 'paw'?
If you already trained paw, did you notice your dog resorting to giving you his foot out of habit?
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