Clicker Training your Dog
Many people may have heard of clicker training but may not have actual seen it work or tried it our with their own dog. Most dogs enjoy training with a clicker and produce good results
What is it?
Clicker Training is a positive method to teach new behaviours to a dog, a human, a fish and many more kinds of animals. The reward is given, and we will only talk about dogs, when the dog does something right but you just ignore anything it gets wrong. This can seem a little strange at first but your will soon get into the swing of it. You are waiting, at first, for the dog to perform some behaviour, at which time you will click and reward. The click tells the dog it has carried out what the owner wanted it to do.
How Clicker Training Works
Your dog will learn that the click and the position it is in when the click took place go together and get him a reward. Once a dog is clear, when its doing the correct behaviour, it will quickly perform other new behaviours. You will get to the point where the dog is throwing all sorts of behaviours at you trying to find the one you want – then he gets the click and the reward.
Clicker training is about reinforcing a behaviour you want and your dog to do this depend on your timing of the click – click too early or late and the dog may think you want something different to what you actually want. The click and the reward become the motivation, initially, for the dog to do the behaviour. Once the behaviour is well established vocal commands can be introduce prior to the behaviour and these will gradually replace the click. The treat and the click will be less important once the behaviour is thoroughly learnt.
First steps are to “load the clicker”, which means you teach the dog that the click is immediately followed by a treat. So pick a simple behaviour, say just looking at the owner, when the dog does it the owner clicks and treats. Turns away a little and wait for the dog to come and look at the owner again – click treat again. This is repeated about 25 times so the dog associates the click with the treat.
Next you pick, in your head, another behaviour the dog does naturally such as sit. Ready with your clicker, wait for the dog to sit, click the second it touches the floor and reward. Perhaps you throw the reward on the floor so the dog has to get up again to get the treat. It will quite quickly get the idea that if it sits it gets the click and then the treat. If your timing goes wrong or the dog sits and very quickly lies down, and you have clicked you must treat.
Timing is very important and as owner you might want to practice away from the dog. If you spend a few minutes watching cars pass a certain point – click as they pass. Watching television, when a new person starts to talk click, I am sure you can think of many other ways you could practice your timing.
You must keep the motivation of the dog up so do not keep working your dog for more than say ten minutes, then have a play with his favourite toy, or just make a fuss of him, for a few minutes and then go back to clicker training. He will come back refreshed and eager to throw behaviours at you left, right and centre. Always finish your training on a positive note – your dog has done something wonderful, even if it is just a sit, give lots of praise and a big treat. It will keep both you and your dog enthusiastic for the next training session.
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