Paw Targeting

[teekay]

Hi everyone, after a bit of advice.

I am trying to get Luka to target my left had with his right paw and my right hand with his left paw. I have started with targeting a coaster and he offers his right paw reliably but how can I get him to use his left paw? I have a different colour ( is that a good idea or should I look for a different shape?) coaster for him to use his left paw but he is very relluctant to use it. He paws with his right and I ignore him, he puts his nose on it, I ignore again but he will not move his left paw?

Any ideas

[BCNut]

Put him in a sit, treat in your hand, give him a wiff of it so he knows its there, make a fist with your hand and gently try and slide it under his paw you want him to target with. Hopefully he will paw at it = mark & reward. Gradually turn your fist over and open it until he is targeting the palm of your hand.

Just another way of teaching hand targeting - doesn't work with all dogs - if they are really foody they will generally just try and munch/lick the treat out, or if you play 'its yer choice' he may take it as a cue to ignore the treat. But some dogs will try paw at your closed fist to get the food out, thats what you want :) Good luck hope it helps :)

[hankdog]

Just done this with Jake. He always high 5's with his left so I gave him the same signal with the other hand and then just nudged his shoulder. Reward for slight lift and then build on it. Now I'm using a square piece of plastic in my left and a round lid in my right. Apparently different shape is easier than just different color. Next week I'm going to glue the shapes on sticks and then see what bizarre things we can get happening.

[teekay]

Put him in a sit, treat in your hand, give him a wiff of it so he knows its there, make a fist with your hand and gently try and slide it under his paw you want him to target with. Hopefully he will paw at it = mark & reward. Gradually turn your fist over and open it until he is targeting the palm of your hand.

Just another way of teaching hand targeting - doesn't work with all dogs - if they are really foody they will generally just try and munch/lick the treat out, or if you play 'its yer choice' he may take it as a cue to ignore the treat. But some dogs will try paw at your closed fist to get the food out, thats what you want :) Good luck hope it helps :)

Thanks BCNut, we do do 'It's Yer Choice" so think he would probably just ignore the treat,as you say. Thanks anyway :)

Just done this with Jake. He always high 5's with his left so I gave him the same signal with the other hand and then just nudged his shoulder. Reward for slight lift and then build on it. Now I'm using a square piece of plastic in my left and a round lid in my right. Apparently different shape is easier than just different color. Next week I'm going to glue the shapes on sticks and then see what bizarre things we can get happening.

Yeah Hankdog I think a different shape would be better. I've just realised I have some silver square coasters so I will use that for his left paw and just persevere. He has actually managed to touch with his left paw a couple of times and I have marked and treated but he then goes straight back to touching with his right or offering a whole lot of other tricks trying to work out what it is I want. It obviously isn't sinking in yet. Early days, I'll keep trying. :)

[corvus]

Some dogs have a pretty strong paw preference. They won't use the non-preferred paw much naturally. I was kinda mean. I would gently squish the other paw or tap it to bring his attention to it, then mark when he lifted it. If you have a dog that shifts around a bit, you can try shaping it starting with a shift in weight to the other side and things like that. Anything that is closer to lifting his left paw than sitting or standing square. You also might have more luck with dog in a down. That way they don't need to shift much of their weight at all.

I haven't had any problems cuing left and right. I use a verbal cue for my particularly left-pawed dog ("Paw", "Other one"). Erik picked up putting his right paw on my left foot and left on my right foot super fast once he realised there were two paw options. I take the target away as soon the dog lifts the wrong paw, before they can put it on the target. They picked it up fast.