Once your dog has understood the clicker, you have a
vast array of possibilities at your fingertips.
Age for puppies learning - as soon as the pup has settled in well at home, whether it be a few days or a week.
For older dogs and rescues - again, as long as they are happily settled in your home, you can begin clicker training.
When introducing the clicker to your puppy or dog, you should mask the click at first by either putting it in a pocket and clicking or behind your back or in glove and then clicking.
You can get regulated sound frequencies now in soft, medium and loud. The frequency depends on how your dog reacts.
Use small pieces of soft, tasty foodstuffs that will slide down well, eg, small pieces of ham, cheese, sausage, etc.
Keep these treats in your hand (keep about 10 at a time in your hand) when using the clicker so that you can give instantaneous rewards to your dog as the timing is vital to your dog's learning.
Sometimes, if the treats are delayed for any reason, you can end up with the dog barking at you, as if to say "Give me" as they love their clicker work and look forward to doing more, but that means when your dog barks at you, you have to wait longer because you don't want to reward the dog for barking. So, remember - TIMING!
Using the clicker for training is beneficial because the dog learns very quickly. The catchy sound "marks" what we want our dog to do and the food delivery "marks" the end of the behaviour.
A click always promises a reward. The majority of dogs work well for food, but time playing with a toy or a pat or a cuddle can also be used as a reward.
Once your dog has understood the clicker, you have a
vast array of possibilities at your fingertips.
Capture natural behaviours like the wagging tail; leg stretch; a head shake; walking backwards to get out of somewhere. Simply wait for the behaviour to occur, click and reward. Your dog will quickly try to re-create what has resulted in the reward.
However, be aware that if your dog wags his tail and you click but he barks at the same time, you could inadvertantly encourage your dog to bark again, as well as the waggy tail.
Unwanted behaviours can be taken back out of your dog's repertoire by simply never clicking for them.
Clicker training is good for the kindess and understanding of effective training. You can build a lovely bond of friendship, trust and love. You should try not to show the dog what he has to do as this sometimes interferes with the learning.
As we give verbal messages to the dog over and over, this has an effect of repetition and dogs, like us, go "off the boil" or can switch off and this could end up with the dog preferring to do something better than what's on offer.
Sometimes you may ask "Why has he done that when he didn't do it before?" Well, excessive demands are not ideal for training. If you were pushed into doing something over and over again, you would soon get fed up and not want to do it any more.
With clicker training, the dog is doing something because he wants to, not because he is being forced or "nagged" into doing it.
Enjoy this training and................
Keep clicking!