Clicker Training – the Easy Way To Train Your Dog

Clicker training for dogs is one of the more recent methods in dog training. It’s rooted in research done in behavioral psychology and the method is referred to by psychologists as operant conditioning. But you don’t need to know scientific terms in order to benefit from the method.

The method was first developed with dolphins. In this case, a whistle made the sound rather than a clicker. You can imagine how difficult it is to train a dolphin compared to a dog. The clicker training method uses the idea of positive reinforcement. It was very difficult to give a treat to a dolphin at the instant the dolphin performed the behaviour you wanted. However, you could blow a whistle immediately. Then you could follow that with a tasty treat soon afterwards.

In order to positively reinforce a wanted behavior, you should reward it at the moment it occurs or very shortly afterwards or the animal will not associate the reward with the action. The whole reward process is made so much easier and clearer by using a sound from a whistle or clicker to mark the action.

The first step is to positively associate the sound of the clicker with getting a reward. By clicking and following the click with a treat many times, the sound and the reward become associated. Once this connection is made, the clicker sound itself becomes like a reward because it’s so closely linked with the treat in the dog’s mind. This repetitive process is called charging the clicker by dog trainers.

Once the clicker is charged, you use the clicker when the dog does an action you want and you always follow the behavior with a treat. In true clicker training, you wait for the behavior to happen naturally and click and treat. In order to do this more complicated behaviors must split up into smaller bits. A tool which assists to do this is the target stick.

One of the first tasks in clicker training is to get your dog to touch his nose to the target stick. Once your dog completes this task, the target stick can be used to get your dog to any place where you put the target stick. This is so helpful when training your dog in other actions.

Getting dog’s nose to touch the target stick is easy. If you put it in front of his nose, he will probably touch it. Then you click and treat. Be sure to allow your dog to touch the stickof his own free will! Keep repeating for a few of minutes. Then have a break.

It can take some time when a dog is introduced to clicker training, especially if he is an older dog. Patience is a requirement for effective clicker training. It may take a couple of training sessions before your dog gets it. But once he’s got it, it will stay.

Another tool which is very useful in clicker training is a computer mouse pad or something similar that you train your dog to stand on with a front foot. You can get your dog to do this easily by just placing it down on the ground near him and waiting for him to stand on it. Immediately, click and reward. As before, repeat this until your dog gets it. As with the target stick, this tool can then be used to direct your dog to a spot in subsequent training.

Once a behavior has been trained, the next step is to add a cue. A cue means that you assign a verbal request like “sit” or “stay” to the behavior. You do this by saying the cue word just as you notice the dog is about to do the action. As usual you click and reward the action. Then, by repeating this, the command becomes associated with the reward, just like the clicker sound is. Please note that when you start training with the cue, you don’t reward the behavior alone any more – it has to be preceded by the cue. If the dog just offers the behavior, there is no click or reward.

I hope this has given you some idea of how the clicker is used as an effective tool in dog training. You will want to read much more about it if you are interested in trying clicker training. What I particularly like about it is that it’s very step-by-step and all it requires is patience and consistency.

Tags: clicker training, clicker training for dogs, dog clicker training, Dog Training