Clicker Training for Dogs
Clicker Training for Dogs of All Breeds and Ages 2006 HERDING CAMPS!
Welcome to this informational site. If you want to learn about Clicker Training and how it is applied to obedience and herding (other areas, too), you've come to the right place. While this site doesn't have the excitement of blinking letters, animated dogs, jazzy colors, or music, it's an exciting place to visit if you need help clicker training your dog.
The one exciting thing about this site is how your dog will respond to what you learn here. The dog that learns to sit quietly instead of jumping on visitors and comes every time he is called instead of running in the other direction can be exciting for a dog owner whose dog has displayed such behaviors. Clicker Training isn't magic dust, although sometimes it seems to work like magic. It's a scientific approach to training a dog without harsh correction, accomplished by letting or getting the dog to offer good (desirable) rather than bad (undesirable) behavior.
Many trainers who have been around a while believe Clicker Training is a way of "candy-coating" the training of a dog. They could be right. What's the harm in that as long as it works. Harsh leash pops, pinch collars, and physical force are not necessarily the best training methods for dogs that are operant and respond well to an operant training method. Most respond to Clicker Training in a way that amazes owners training with punishment accomplishing little.
Does this mean there are no corrections in Clicker Training? No, it doesn't. There are lots of corrections. Turning your back on a dog and removing the one thing he wants most, your attention, is a very effective correction. The whole point here is that Clicker Training works on the principal of giving instant feedback to the dog, positive or negative, depending on the behavior he has offered.
You've probably heard the expression, "Think smarter, not harder," That's clicker training in a nut shell. For visitors new to Clicker Training, I've listed some of the most obvious differences between it and the old jerk-and-pull method of dog training:
- Instead of setting aside an hour to drill the dog, clicker training is done in short segments, whenever you have a minute or two to spare here and there throughout the day.
- Rather than having to repeat old material on a happier tone so a frightened and apprehensive dog will wag his tail again, Clicker Training maintains a happy attitude throughout the training process.
- No gloves are needed to protect your hands while jerking on a nylon leash, but instead are handy for training puppies who don't know the difference between a treat and your fingers.
The crux of Clicker Training is that it appeals to a dog's desire for reinforcement rather to his desire to avoid punishment. When his desire to work is shaped, his body will respond - not always quickly, but reliably and for life. When he is allowed to find the solution to a problem rather than being shown the solution, dogs end up essentially training themselves.
Lack of patience could be the main reason a lot of "conventional" trainers have difficulty appreciating Clicker Training; the results are not instantly apparent to the "untrained" eye. Because we live in an "instant" world, where we boil water in two minutes, send photos world-wide in micro-seconds, and travel around the world in a few hours, it's easy to understand that not observing instant results with a dog might make one think the dog isn't learning or worse, isn't trying to learn.
If you want to SEE the sit, down, come, and stay behaviors as soon as you start training the dog, Clicker Training might not be for you. Instant results aren't always apparent with Clicker Training, but in the end, it takes less time, is more reliable, and most dogs are happy students even when the lessons are difficult.
The biggest difference with Clicker Training is that the dog makes choices, good or bad, and it's trainer feedback that comes after the behavior that lets him know if it was the correct behavior. You could refer to force methods as "pro-active" and Clicker Training as a "passive" method. Anyone can make a dog sit by pulling up on his collar and pushing down on his rear, but forcing the sit only engages the dog's body while his mind is engaged in resisting.
The beauty and benefits of Clicker Training are that it involves communication with the dog's mind rather than with his body. His body's behavior will follow his thought process. In the first few minutes of Clicker Training a sit, the average dog chooses to sit, offers the sit, tries all sorts of new and wonderful sits, and best of all when his training is done, he loves performing a sit every time he is asked. Why? It's a matter of appealing to the dog's desire for reinforcement and his inherent willingness to please his owner.
The CLICK! for Success site is here to help you understand how Clicker Training works, how to use it, to answer questions, and to supply visitors with the tools they need to become proficient Clicker Trainers.
Please read the articles, click on the links, ask questions, join the Yahoo! CFS (Click! for Success) email list, and purchase supplies from our store and the stores and sites we support.
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