Tricks
How to teach a dog to give a paw
Both cues distinct on the word alone: “paw” lands in the hand, “five” slaps the raised palm.
What “paw / high five” actually means
In Proof this is a skill in its own right, because an easy win that doubles as paw-handling practice.
Teach sit first — it is what this one is built on.
The stages
These steps are a draft pending review by a credentialed trainer. They describe standard positive-reinforcement marker training; the app carries the same notice on every session screen.
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Stage 1 — Shake
Goal: Dog places a paw in your open hand on cue
- Treat in a loose fist at chest height of a sitting dog. Most dogs paw at it — mark the paw contact, open, pay.
- Swap the fist for an open flat palm. Mark paw-on-palm. Add "paw".
If it goes wrong
- Dog nose-bumps instead of pawing? Hold the fist a touch lower and tilt it; nose first is fine — wait it out, most dogs escalate to a paw.
- Dog swipes claws down your arm? Mark earlier, at the lift, before the swipe lands.
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Stage 2 — High five
Goal: Paw meets a raised vertical palm
- Rotate your palm upright and raise it a little each session. Same mark, same pay.
- Split the cues — "paw" for the handshake, "five" for the slap — and keep them distinct.
If it goes wrong
- The trick creeps into everything — dog paws you for attention all day? You are paying off-duty paws somewhere. Off cue earns nothing, ever; on cue pays well.
How long does it take?
Most foundation skills reach their bar in two to four weeks of short daily sessions. Adolescence can temporarily un-stick anything, which is normal.
Proof does not put a timeline on an individual skill, and neither should anything else — the honest answer depends on the dog in front of you, how often you practise, and where you practise. What it does instead is measure: every session records how many reps landed, so progress is a number rather than a feeling.
Proving it in 3 different places
A behaviour that only works in the kitchen is situational, not trained. Paw / high five counts as proven in Proof once it clears the bar above at the top stage in 3 genuinely different contexts:
- Indoors — the quiet room where everything works
- Garden — outdoors, but home turf
- Street — pavements, traffic, passing people
- Park — other dogs, long grass, real distraction
- Somewhere new — a place the dog has never worked before
Proof also expires. Leave a proven skill for two months without asking for it and it returns to the daily plan as a refresher, because that is what actually happens to trained behaviour.