Learning alert behaviors

I decided to use a nudging behavior as an alert signal.  I thought it would be useful because it is something that would be more obvious than a nose push.  After a few attempts of trying to get him to touch me with his paw, I realized that I didn't know how to train this. So, I decided to try to get him to shake, thinking that this would be something that he would use his paw for.  None of the other things I trained had included using paws before.  He picked up on it quickly.

I asked my friend Margaret who is a trainer at the ADAI about this.  She suggested using a coffee can lid as a target for Senator to paw.  I tried this and it has really helped.  I started with the foil insert of the lid because it would be easier to hold against my skin when he was ready for that.  At first, I put it on the floor and rewarded him for touching it.  After a few minutes he got the hang of it.  The next day, I put the foil insert against my leg and said "touch" to get him to paw me.  Again, he caught onto this quickly.  The next day, I eliminated the foil insert and just said touch.  He pawed my leg.  I repeated this many times.  Then, I started to switch positions.  I had been sitting indian style on the floor for most of these sessions.  I tried kneeling and then putting my back to him.  He did well with this.  When I stood up, he was either distracted or confused, because he couldn't make this adjustment.

After a few more days of repetition, he can now paw me standing.  Its really cute because he seem so awkward doing this.  Lifting his paw must not be a natural response for him.

Now I'm realizing that I'll have to be careful about not let him paw me for any other reason.  Just recently, he has pawed me a few times as I was putting on my shoes to take him outside.