Introduction to clicker-training your dog.2

By: Wencke Solberg
To test that the association has been made, you could try to click the clicker when the dog is not paying attention to you. If the dog immediately reacts and looks towards you as if waiting for a reward, the association has been made.

Clicker-training

When the dog associates the mere sound of the clicker with the expectancy of a reward you can use the clicker to mark desired behaviours. At the precise moment the dog does something desirable, you click and reward promptly. The most important thing in clicker training is timing. Since the clicker rewards whatever behaviour is occurring at that exact moment, clicking a little too early or a little too late might reinforce a completely different behaviour than intended.

Another crucial element is creating opportunities for the dog to earn rewards frequently. Among professionals a reinforcement rate of one C/T (click/treat) every three seconds is common.

It is also important to break down the tasks into smaller sub-tasks, which is called chaining. Another technique is to start out with easy-to-meet criteria and gradually tighten them.

Example: How to use clicking to train a dog to flip a lightswitch:

The first step here is to teach the dog to touch a target, such as a small plastic-piece, with its nose. Initially, you could try putting something edible on the target. Another method called shaping simply requires putting the target where the dog can reach it and rewarding the dog every time he comes close or touches the target.

When the dog consistently touches the target, you will move on to a target in different positions and eventually transfer the desired behaviour (which is pressing with their nose on it) to the lightswitch. This can be done in a number of ways, but most commonly by putting the plastic target on the lightswitch and therefore rewarding pressing the lightswitch. You can choose to have the dog do this task on command (such as “lights on”) or to give him a wanted reward (such as “if you switch the light on, I will open the door”). In the latter case, you add the act of opening the door to reward as the dog presses the lightswitch.

Clicker-training can be used to reinforce most behaviours in a dog and is counted as a very mild form of training, using the so-called positive approach (reward but no punishment). Clicker-training can also be incorporated into different styles of training and is a very versatile tool for many dog-trainers. Good luck.
Wencke is the webmaster of http://dogbookreviews.5gbfree.com (English) and http://hundebokanmeldelser.5gbfree.com (Norwegian) and has several years of experience in writing useful reviews concentrating on dog-related books. Her main objective is promoting a happy, healthy way of training your dog.

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