Clicker
training? What exactly is it and why does it work so well?
Candi
Moon
What
is a clicker anyway?
A
clicker is a small device, like a child’s toy, that makes a click
sound when pressed. The most common clickers have a metal tongue that
is pressed down, although some clickers have a button to press.
The
click sound is paired with a food treat so that the dog associates
the food and the click sound, just like Pavlov and his dogs, where
the dogs associated the sound of a ringing bell with the arrival of
their meal and began salivating on hearing the bell.
Once
the dog has become conditioned to the clicker he understands that the
click sound means he has done the right thing and that he has earned
a reward. You then have a few seconds after the click to give your
dog a treat.
The
click marks the behaviour that your dog has done that you like and
want to capture and encourage your dog to do again. For example, your
dog sits, you click to let the dog know this is the behaviour you
want and then reward your dog with a food treat.
The
click replaces you saying ‘good dog’ or giving some other
indication to the dog that they have done what you want them to.
What
are the advantages of clicker?
The
click always sounds the same. Our voices vary in tone depending on
our mood, amount of energy we have that day etc. Think about how you
would say ‘good dog’ when in a bad mood and tired compared to
when you are happy and full of energy. As dogs don’t talk, they pay
much more attention to our tone than our words. Due to this your
dog might not even realise that these two different ‘good dogs’
are the same words and mean the same thing. With the clicker there is
no such confusion.
The
click happens very fast and is very precise. By the time you say ‘good dog’ your dog
may have lain down, stood up and turned around, which behaviour are
you rewarding the dog for? It may take the dog a while to work this
out. With the click the dog knows exactly which behaviour is being
rewarded and this speeds up the learning process.
Some
dogs have negative connotations with voices e.g. if your dog is a rescue. If you've had a bad day and are feeling angry and depressed, your dog may pick this up from your tone, even though it has nothing to do with the dog, and become worried, stressed and less responsive. The clicker is a neutral sound with no negative
connotations; it frees the dog up to experiment to see what will earn
her a click without having to worry about any emotional pressure.
The
click always sounds the same and doesn’t sound like any other
common household noises, which again makes this very clear for the
dog.
The clicker works great for getting attention from lively dogs or teenaged hooligans. When
teaching simple behaviours like a sit or a down it is easy to lure
the dog into position with a food treat to teach the behaviour. Some
behaviours, however, are difficult or impossible to lure. These can
be taught using clicker via ‘capturing’ or ‘shaping’.
Say
you want to put your dog’s play bow on cue, you would wait for your
dog to bow in play, click and reward. After a while your dog will
start to offer this behaviour and you can add a cue word such as
‘bow’. You can now ask your dog to bow using your cue word. This
is capturing.
When
you need to teach a complex behaviour you will use a shaping process.
If you wanted to teach your dog to retrieve a dumbbell you would
click for closer and closer approximations to what you want until
finally you have captured the whole behaviour. For example you would
start off by clicking you dog for any interaction with the dumbbell,
looking at it, walking towards it, pawing it, nosing it or biting it.
Once the dog has the idea that it gets rewarded for interacting with
the dumbbell you raise your criteria and click and treat only for
nosing and biting. Then click and treat only for biting. Then wait
and see if your dog will bite and lift the dumbbell a little and
click and treat only for slight lifts, then for larger lifts and
finally work up to the dog going out to fetch the dumbbell, lifting
it and returning it to you.
When
training with the clicker your dog does all the work, you simply
click for those behaviours that you want, it is your dog’s job to
figure out how to get the click. This really stimulates your dog’s
mind and helps to develop a thinking dog who actively interacts with
you.
Want
to try out some clicker with your dog? The next article deals with how to get started with clicker. You can also
visit www.clickertraining.com
to find out more.
This
article may be freely distributed provided it is left intact and the source is credited.
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