Clicking Your Way to a Well Trained Pooch

Ah, clicker training and using positive reinforcement to train your dog. A great topic indeed.

Sadly people don't understand this method of training or have a skewed idea of what it really is.

Clicker, or marker training as it is sometimes called is simply marking a wanted behavior by clicking a clicker.

Example, you want your dog to sit. You can do this two ways. You can lure them into the sit or you can capture the sitting behavior.

Luring them with food and then clicking when they sit is a great way to teach the sit and a perfect example of clicker training. Another method is to wait for them to sit on their own and capture it with a click.

Capturing explained: You are sitting in your chair watching Opera. Just when a commercial comes on your dog sits. You have a clicker (being the prepared owner you are) and you click then walk over and give them a treat.

After a week or two of this your dog will start to put sitting together with clicks and treats.

This is capturing the behavior and it can work with almost anything you want to teach your dog. Movie dog trainers use this quite a bit to teach those little odd things we see like blinks, head turns, and covering their nose with a paw etc...

Why Most People Are Doing it Wrong

About 5 years ago I was introduced to clicker training. I thought, "They must be nuts!" I mean after all I was doing pretty good with a prong and a leash pop. Dogs were getting trained and I was making lots of progress.

No way would I put all that I have learned in my back pocket and start clicking some thing-a-ma-bober.

Anyway, long story short, it took about 10 minutes of testing this concept for me to literally toss my prong collars in the garbage and replace them with a brand new $2.95 click-a-ma-jigger.

When I say most people are doing it wrong what I am talking about is the use of the clicker long term.

Some trainers start with the clicker and then move to the prong and leash pops. While sometimes you might need this on hard dogs (dogs that can take a correction of impressive power) it's almost always the trainers way of speeding up the training.

After all, time is money and the more people they shuffle through their programs the more money they make.

The clicker is a tool that can be used to teach everything you will ever teach your dog and then some.

A few things I've trained using only a clicker and some treats:

1. Wave when I say, "goodbye" My dog Angel will sit and wave at me. Clicker trained.



2. Kangaroo! When I say, "Kangaroo!" my dogs will jump up in the air. Clicker trained (using the capture technique).



3. Roll-over 3 times in a row. I say, "Roll" and my dogs will roll three times real quick. Clicker trained.



4. Quick down. This is a down while I'm running/walking with my dogs. I say, "down" while running they down instantly. Clicker trained.



5. Speak. Or the "Are you smart?" cue. I ask, "Are you smart?" my dogs tell the world YES! with a big loud bark. Clicker trained.

I'm not trying to brag or show people that I know more than anyone else. Rather, I'm showing the range of a handful of things you can teach your dog using nothing but a clicker and some treats.

But Jason, won't I always need a clicker and treats to get the behaviors I want?

No. You will wean your dog off both the clicks and the treats as they progress in the training.

For example, the "are you smart" cue my dogs do is now cued by blinking twice in a row. I ask "are you smart?" and then blink two times quickly. Dogs bark.

This was taught with a clicker and I replaced the clicker with the blinking over time.

Where people are making mistakes is they think the clicker is not sufficent to teach more complicated commands.

In reality, it is perfect for teaching complicated behaviors because you can mark each section of the desired behavior until they are doing the whole thing (called shaping or chaining) for a single click and treat.

Purely Positive Vs. Balanced Training Vs. Compulsion Training

I am not a purely positive dog trainer. Thought I would get that out there right off the bat.

While I admire purely positive trainers they tend to be a little too "eat vegatables and not meat" for me. In short, a little extreme in their ideas about dog training. What's humane, what's not, etc...

Some purely positive dog trainers are completely against any form of correction, this means verbal corrections (like no, or eh, eh) too.

Compulsion trainers are people you use pain + force to teach, mold and maintain behaviors. For example, putting a shock collar on a dog and putting the collar on contineous stimulation until the dog sits. When the dog sits the collar is turned off.

The dog quickly learns sitting means no shocking so they start to offer the sit more often.

Well balanced trainers using positive reinforcement with negative punishement and while some employ the prong collar for more advanced training they try their best to stick with positive methods until they are either unsuccessful or the dog is going to be re-homed or given up to the shelter (extreme cases need extreme measures type of thing).

In Conclusion

I recommend leaning towards being a well balanced trainer to your dog.

Well balanced training concepts are based on positive reinforcement (treats, petting, praise, games) and negative punishment (removing treats, petting, praise, games.)

Verbal markers are given for unwanted behaviors as well. No or eh, eh are the most common. This is not a correction it is saying to the dog, "You didn't do what I asked, try again."

Whatever method you choose, clicker training can be used along with positive reinforcement to click your way to a well trained pooch.

For more information about positive dog training visit the Positive Dog Training Section by clicking here