Gimme Five! Thor keeps rocking his New Year resolutions

Tonight, I can officially say that Thor knows 'Shake'. I was very surprised to see that he immediately picked up "High Five". He's the coolest dog in school!

It took me a ridiculously long time to get Thor to shake hands. This is supposed to be an easy command, but besides walking, Thor did not use his paws at all. If I showed him my hand, he either nosed it for a treat, or ran away because he knew I was about to touch his paws.

I started by teaching him to "Touch" other things. First an orange treat ball, then a bell, then anything I put in front of him. Once he got that, I started giving him my palm. This still took a while because he didn't treat my hand the way he did other objects. I also started holding his paws for a second or two when giving him belly rubs and praising him when he didn't pull them away.

Finally, he started pawing my hand. In fact, he pretty much paws at everything now in hopes that it will produce treats.

Now that I've taught him to "Shake", I'll be working with him to polish and enhance his command set:

1. Stay - Now before I unleash him at the dog park, I tell him to 'Stay'. He doesn't manage it on the first try, but he quickly figures out he needs to stay in place to get his freedom.

2. Down - We'll work on an official "OK" release. Right now he gets up when he feels like it.

3. Come - I don't use the official "Come" gesture, I just clap my hands. I will probably just stick with what I have.

4. Shake / Paw - work on distinguishing between left and right paws.

5. Roll Over, Dance, and Play Dead. I can't wait to get to these!