Clicker training basics

Clicker training Basics

Before you start to use a clicker to train your dog, you'll need to do some preparation. Here for your enjoyment and education is clicker training 101.

If you just walk up to your dog and start clicking, he'll wonder what on earth has got into you. So, the first thing to do is to teach your dog what the click actually means.

To start clicker training, make sure you have a clicker, lots of yummy treats, and of course, your dog. Click, then immediately give him a treat. Click and treat around 20 times, then take a break. Repeat this another two or three times during the course of a day. It won't be long before your dog's ears prick up when he hears the click, and he comes to you for his reward. At this point he knows that the click means a reward is on the way, and you can then start to train him.

Let's teach him to sit for starters. Take a treat between your fingers, and move it over his nose and above his head so he looks up at it. His bottom should automatically hit the ground. AS SOON AS he sits, click then reward him. Do it again, and then again. Don't be surprised if your dog starts walking up to you and sitting, hoping to get a reward. Perhaps he thinks he is training you to give him a treat!

Dogs learn best by repetition, so make sure you repeat this training session over and over again, until he is reliably sitting on command. When he is doing that, you can then improve on that by only rewarding the particularly fast sits, or the especially neat sits. This is important if you plan on competing with your dog in obedience classes.

Don't assume that if you train your dog with clicker training that you need to keep a fistful of treats with you all the time. When your dog is performing reliably, you can start to fade the reward. It's important that you do this, because if you reward every sit, your dog will become less reliable over time. Why would he continue to try hard when a treat is coming anyway? You need to move to what is called a “variable schedule of reinforcement”. This just means that you just give him a reward on occasion, so he keeps doing his best in case this sit is the one that earns the treat.

When you and your dog have mastered the sit, move on to teach him other behaviors. If clicker training (or whistle training!) can be used to teach dolphins to leap as high as they can in the middle of a pool of water, you should be able to teach your dog just about anything with a clicker and his favorite reward.