How to clicker train

By Liz Norris, Master Trainer
AKC-CGC Instructor and Therapy Evaluator
Pawsibilities Unleashed
Pet Therapy of Kentucky, Inc.

How to do the Clicker training:

Basically I say:

• See it
• Like it
• Click it
• Treat it
• Keep it

Translates to:

• See the dog doing something
• You like what the dog is doing
• Click with clicker
• Treat dog with great treat

Translates to:

• Dog picks up a ball
• You like this
• Click with clicker
• Treat with great treat

Dogs sees this as:

Wow, I picked up a ball, heard the "marker", click that I was doing something the human liked and double wow, I got a treat for it. How easy was that and communication was totally clear.

This starts the dog to become motivational in offering behaviors. In easy to understand terms;

(1) the dog starts to "offer" you behaviors to see if you will
(2) Like them
(3) Click him
(4) He gets a reward (treat)

Conditioning the dogs mentality to keep trying things over and over and to think and to offer behaviors that you could not get any other way. the dog starts to try different things because he wants to hear the click. He knows the click means a reward (treat, fetch, other motivational likes).

For human understanding:

If you walked down the street and every blond you passed gave you a Click/$100.00 bill.
Human nature would make you become conditioned to start seeking out blonds in the crowd because you have been rewarded by a positive method for doing so.....Click means you found one - Treat means $100.00 bill

If you were to walk down the street and every red head slapped you, then mental conditioning would take over to see all red heads as a threat and you would start avoiding them. You might never really be able to trust one ever depending on how much negative association you had with them over how much time frame.

This translates into:

If every time I ask you to "Sit", I jerked your head off with a choke chain or prong collar or shocked you with shock collar, then I would be training you by bully methods, intimidation methods, threat methods, not teaching you by example. You would learn to focus on the negative instead of the positive. Even if you sat and I treated you, you would know, "I sat because I was being abused" big deal that I got a treat...who cares, I still got abused. The dog or person starts to focus on, "how can I keep this from happening" not I am working happily to save your life. Then you have a dog that is always looking for the correction and focused on that, which means the dog is not focused on your blood sugar, seizures, body scent changes, and not focused on the positive.

Dogs trained by the negative shut down. They feel like no matter what they do or what answer they come up with the end result will be the same.....they get abused. that is where their focus has been conditioned to be.

Teaching is showing, leading, setting an example. Dogs trained by this method (clicker or lure) are capable of thinking thru a puzzle and coming up with a solution. They do not shut down, quit working, and will keep on trying until they get the right answer. They have never been told "No" you are too stupid, "No" you can't achieve this you are a dog, "No" you can't do this, you are the wrong breed, but encouraged all the way from puppyhood to, "Yes" good dog. If they make a mistake, then you do not click or treat.

Following example of working with new puppy:

My pup is asked to Down
-she offers me a Sit (her best thing ever)
*nothing happens except - that is a good Sit - (because it was and you should always notice when they do something good)
-she offers me a High 5
*nothing happens except - that is good High 5 - (because it was and you should always notice when they do something good)
-She offers me a spin
*nothing happens except - that is good Spin - (because it was and you should always notice when they do something good)

-finally she thinks, it is not something I have done before and been rewarded for. I need to try things that I have never been click/treated for.

-She offers me a Bow
*Now we are cooking
You can click this, as it is on the way to the Down
She is like, Wow I got clicked for that Bow thing
then she test it to see if it is really what got her clicked/treated
-Then she bows and nothing happens (I usually C/T for the Bow about 5X before I ask for a little bit more)
she is confused because now we are asking her for just a little bit more
-she lays down.
*Click/Treat (really big jack pot treat so it will stick in her memory)

this happens in minutes. Everyone is happy and had a great time.

or you can by-pass the Bow/Click/Treat for just the Down and shape the Bow later as a trick.

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MeBO Research