Dogs tend to paw at things when they’re frustrated. Teaching “shake” starts off with getting your dog “annoyed” or frustrated enough to paw at you. You can do this by holding a treat below their mouth, but not low enough to do a “down”. Eventually they will paw at your hand and you say “YES!” and open it up for the treat.

Once your dog is pawing at your hand as soon as you show it to them, you want them to get used to getting a treat from the other hand. Use a “switch” and treat them from the other hand now.

Now that your dog is used to getting treats from the other hand, they won’t care if you open your palm and there’s no treat there. Start doing “shake” with an open palm and still giving the treat from the other hand.

Now that you have a consistent “paw” or “shake” (whatever you want to call it), your dog will not notice if you slowly inch up more and more. Keep doing this and using the word “paw” or “shake” until it’s high enough and you can say “high-five” instead.