High FiveDog raises a paw to slap your open palm
A vertical shake. The dog already knows to put paw in hand. Now raise the hand so the paw has to come up higher and the contact is a slap rather than a placement. Build from shake so the dog understands paw-to-palm.
Also known as: Slap, Up Top
At a glance
- Tier
- 2 · Intermediate
- Time to fluency
- 1–3 weeks
- Practice
- 3× per week, 5 min each
- Equipment
- Small soft treats
Prerequisites
Your dog should know these words first:
How to teach high five
Lure
Hold your palm vertically at the dog's chest height and present a treat behind it
- Start from a reliable shake, then rotate your hand so your palm faces the dog
- Hold a treat behind your vertical palm so the dog paws at it
- Mark the paw-to-palm contact and reward
- Raise the height gradually over sessions
Hand Signal
Vertical open palm at shoulder height
- Present the palm and wait. The dog should offer the paw from shake experience
- If they revert to a low shake, raise your hand slightly higher
- Keep the palm still and let the dog come to you
Verbal Cue
A different word than shake to distinguish the two
- Use a distinct cue so the dog learns to differentiate shake (horizontal) from high five (vertical)
- Say the word, present the palm, mark and reward the slap
- Once reliable, the word alone should produce the raised paw
Success criteria
- Unlearned
- Does not raise paw above shake height
- In progress
- Raises paw to slap a high palm on the word alone
- Mastered
- High fives either hand on verbal cue, any environment
Common mistakes
- Holding the palm too high before the dog is confident, causing frustration
- Not differentiating the cue from shake, so the dog gets confused
- Rewarding a low paw lift when the goal is a genuine slap up high