Dog Clicker Training - Part 2

On the first step of clicker training you got your dog used to being trained with a clicker. It is now time to progress to step two.

Retreat to a space that your dog thinks is more interesting, possibly the kitchen. A place where you will not have a lot of distractions. Have a bowl of treats ready.

Call your dog by his name in a happy voice and when he looks at you, click and give him a treat.Allow him to get distracted with something else then repeat the process. Do this several times. You want the dog when he hears the clicker that he is looking at you.

If at first when you call your dog's name he does not look at you, touch him gently so that he will turn around, click and treat whether or no the looks at you, he will get the idea.

At the beginning hold the treat behind you, then go to having the bowl placed on the table. If he continues to look towards the bowl, give him time and wait until he looks back at you, then click and treat. You are looking to have your dog look at you in the eyes when you click the clicker.

You are now ready to go to slowly go to the next steps. When your dog is achieving a step right then you can progress to the next step.

When he is answering to the sound of his name you can start to mold his behavior so he is looking at you directly in the eyes. With many dogs this can be accomplished by calling his name as before and if he looks anywhere else other than your eyes do not click and treat. Call his name again until he looks into yours eyes, then click and treat and praise. From this point forward your dog must give you eye contact when he is called to attention with the clicker in order to get a treat.

Once your dog is responding to your calling his name. you then need to vary how often that you click and treat. By doing this you can mold your dogs behavior even more and decrease his dependency on food. Two ways his response can improve is how long it takes him to look at you and how long he maintains eye contact. You must shape each behavior separately.

If you go for shaping a quick response, then you will only click and treat when your dog quickly turns to look at you when you say his name. If he takes too long to look at you you will not click and treat, look away or just smile. The next step after this one has been learned is the length of eye contact. You will stop clicking and treating the moment your dog looks at you, but instead hold his look a few moments afterwards, say for a count of 2.n if he is still looking intently in your eyes, click and treat. If he looks away too soon, ignore him for a minute then try again,

At this point your dog is now ready to learn to respond even with distractions. To begin have your dog sit in front of you. Call his name and click and treat for a correct response. Next while your dog is still focused on you have a friend come up beside you. Naturally your dog will turn to look at your friend Your friend should immediately turn away and not show any interest. Call the dog by name then click and treat if he responds appropriately. If he fails to respond wait a minute or two then try again, the moment he responds click and treat. Now have your friend approach again and repeat the process. if your dog is ready for this process he will soon learn to pay more attention to you instead of the visitor.

When you are working on distractions you should click and treat a quick look. in fact when your dog answers you at all amid a very strong distraction click and treat as soon as he turns toward you.

As long as you keep the training sessions short, and remember to take it slowly and work on one step at a time, your dog will enjoy the training.