Blanca often will sit relaxing with her paws crossed so I thought it would be a fun behavior to teach. Also, I like to work on paw handling and choices around foot movements so that she is more comfortable with husbandry behaviors involving paws such as nail trims!

Teaching your deaf dog new behaviors can be useful as you shape a collection of handy cues. Building a repertoire of behaviors you want to see repeated can help if you need to substitute a behavior for a less desirable one.

To start, Blanca already knew a “hand me your paw” behavior.

This is similar to a “shake” however is not a behavior that I like to teach first as the first behaviors taught will have the longest reinforcement history and also often be the “go to” default behaviors for the dog. As such, I’d prefer the defaults be options like eye contact, offered sit, offered down, or 4 paws on the floor.

Blanca also previously knew how to target with her paw. This means she knew how to touch an object with her paw when cued.

Too, Blanca was very familiar with the concept of a marker and reinforcer.


My shaping plan for her “paws crossed” behavior was as follows:

  1. cue her to target my hand with her right paw
  2. gradually move (via several sessions, marking and reinforcing this behavior) my hand as target towards her left paw-mark and reinforce her targeting my hand with her right paw
  3. gradually move my hand as target on her left paw-mark and reinforce her targeting my hand with her right paw
  4. gradually move my hand as target across her left paw-mark and reinforce her targeting my hand with her right paw
  5. gradually fade my hand as target and mark and reinforce her offering the behavior in response to my visual hand movement cue

If I were using TAG-teaching with acoustical guidance- I’d provide the following TAG points!

  • CT (click/treat) for touching her paw
  • CT for paw movement
  • cue target with right paw
  • move target towards left paw
  • move target onto left paw
  • move target across left paw
  • fade hand target 

Try watching for a behavior that your dog already performs and then think about putting it on cue!