It doesn’t matter if your dog is 5 months old or 5 years old, clicker training your dog provides a fast effective method for training.
Why Clicker Training?
If you are looking for positively based methods to teach basic behaviors and solve problems look no further than clicker training. Clicker training and other positive based methods tend to be quicker and more effect than traditional force based methods.
Controlling Behavior and Environment
With positive reinforcement training there is a focus on what happens immediately after a behavior occurs. For example, if you call your dog to come to you a dog will behave in a certain manner in the future depending on what happens when he is called. So after calling your dog 1 of 2 things can happen:
- Treats and praise are given to your dog for coming to you when called.
- The dog is yelled at and put into a crate, given a bath, or some other thing that isn’t pleasant to the dog.
So if I was the dog, I would probably never come when called if the result of my actions resulted in “2”. But if “1” occurred, I will come each time, happy and excited knowing that I was either going to get a treat or receive praise. This is how reinforced based methods work.
How Does a Clicker Work into Positive Reinforcement
The clicker provides a way for us to communicate with our dogs. The clicker is also known as a secondary reinforcer, and the treat/praise/toy are the primary reinforcers. When a desired behavior is given by the dog, we immediately “mark” that behavior with a click (click only once). The sound of the click can be delivered quicker and stands out more than our own voices. The “click” takes the place of saying “yes”, “good”, etc. The signal is clear and quick for the dog to understand that the behavior they just gave is exactly what we wanted. This is then immediately followed by a treat ( 1 click = 1 treat).
I also recommend the following books to learn more about clicker training:
- The Thinking Dog – Gail Tamases Fisher
- Reaching the Animal Mind: Clicker Training and What it Teaches Us About All Animals – Karen Pryor
This blog post is part of the 2015 A to Z Challenge. Today we celebrate the letter “C” with Clicker Training.
Nice post about Clicker Training. Good Luck with your A to Z Challenge. We are doing it too!
Theresa recently posted…Fun with Fur
Loving this series – just saw your videos from the other post and I’m ready to start taking small baby steps with Jax now! Thanks so much, please continue this series….
GROOVY GOLDENDOODLES recently posted…HONORED TO RECEIVE THIS AWARD
The challenge with using posiive reinforcement iis that rewards must be provided quickly.
You may sometimes gget very upset byy your dog’s
behaviors like peeing on the carpet, jumping up on visitors, biting, gnawing or chewing your furniture.
So iff you have a very small dog, obviously you will
need a much smaller, and far lighter wooden dumb bell to train your dog with.
Although sitting is completely natural for a dog to
do, following tthe command to sit is not.
Jeffery recently posted…Jeffery
Mom always thought about trying that clicker thing
Lily & Edward
We love clicker training for our young Lab Luke. He is really learning a lot of things very quickly using the clicker and positive reinforcement. I’m so glad we decided to try it. Thanks for the book recommendations too, because I have been looking for some good books on it as well.
Jan K recently posted…FitDog Friday – First Spring Walks
I think my parent’s dog could use some clicker training. Maybe I will start at Easter! He loves to jump up on everyone all the time!
I will be following along!
TheFrogLady
Allyse recently posted…April A to Z Challenge – Letter C
My first clicker looked just like the red and yellow one! I wore it on a blue stretchy band around my wrist.
Kari recently posted…C is for Cheesy!
One of my goals by the end of the summer is to work on Clicker Training with Luna! Thanks for this helpful post!
Jessica Shipman | Beagles and Bargains recently posted…Can You Find the Easter Eggs? – Easy Easter Egg Hunt for Dogs!
Great info and advice on this method.
sumskersandearlskers13.blogspot.com
Earl Lover recently posted…C is for Competing