How to teach your dog to shake

Teaching your dog how to shake is surprisingly an easy trick. Hopefully your dog is food motivated, because this will make it a lot easier. If your dog is sort of a picky eater you could try lunch meat or cheese instead of regular dog treats.

1. First get your dog to sit. (your dog will not be able to shake while standing :)
2. Next say "Shake", "Paw", "Give me some", whatever phrase you want to use
3. Then gently grab a leg (whichever one you choose) and gently move it up and down (like a handshake)
4. Treat your dog afterwards and give praises

If you do these steps several times back to back, your dog should start wanting to beat you to it, and start offering their paw to get the treat. I recommend whichever leg you end up choosing, stick with that one, so there is no confusion. Once you're at the point where you say "Shake", and your dog gives their paw to you without you having to help them, you can start weening out the treats. But you still want to give them some every once in awhile. So that way they don't get bored and think well you never give me any treats anymore, so why try.

Once your dog gets this down really well, you can start working on the other paw. However, you want to use a different word then the one you started with, so your dog does not get confused. For example, for my dog when I say shake, he gives me his left paw. I taught him the word "other paw" and now he gives me his right. You would teach it the same way as you did the original paw.

If you have any questions, or want to share other cool tricks you have taught your dog, please share. :)
Have a great day everyone!