Before you can begin
clicker training, your dog must be food motivated. Most dogs
already are, but some dogs that are free-fed "buffet style" (the
food is left on the floor for the dog to finish when he pleases)
will not be motivated enough to be able to be clicker trained.
Please see my article
Feeding Routinesfor more
information.
Click Means Treat: Charging Up the
Clicker
This is the first thing you have to
do before you can do anything at all with the clicker. You must
teach the dog that the click means something. The click should
mean to the dog, "a treat is forthcoming." The following
instructions should be followed until you see your dog
"startling" when he hears the clicker sound. This can be
as few as 5 or as many as 100 repetitions...depends on the dog.
Begin the following exercises
with a HUNGRY DOG. Each session should be no longer than 2
minutes or so. You can do as many sessions per day as you
like as long as they are short.
Click the clicker and give a
treat. At first, aim for very quick delivery of the treat.
After the first few repetitions, vary your time between
click and treat. Remember that sessions should remain quite
short! Use different rooms of your house, different body
postures, and (VERY IMPORTANT) don't ask the dog to
do anything like "sit" or "gentle." Just click and treat!
You will notice the dog
"startling" to the click. This means he is beginning to
understand what the clicker means. DON'TS: Do not
under any circumstances use the click at this point to get
the dog to come to you, or "just to see" his cute expression
when he cocks his head and comes running. Never click the
clicker without giving a treat afterwards. If necessary
hide the clicker so that your spouse or children do not get
tempted to "play" with the dog with it! Do not allow
curious onlookers to click the clicker "just for fun."
Make sure to do a few short
charge-up sessions in a couple of different environments
that you've already tried, just to make sure the dog really
gets it.
After you see your dog
"startling" to the click in all situations, you're ready to
start training.
Offering Behaviours: Working For
the Click
Many websites and books will
tell you that at this point, you should click your dog for doing
already known behaviours. It has been my experience that this does
NOT teach the dog to offer behaviours and work for the click.
Instead, start with targeting (dog touches something with his nose),
which is described below.
Pick an area with hardly any
distractions (people, other dogs, noises, toys, etc). Make
sure you have a room where you can shut the door or prevent
the dog from wandering away from you. Get a margarine lid
or a cut-up piece of a mousepad (a target item), your
clicker, your treats, and your dog.
BE READY with your
clicker and your treats. Do not show the dog the target and
PREVENT the dog from sniffing the item until you are totally
ready. Dogs are naturally curious and will quite naturally
sniff/check out something dropped on the floor, but
afterwards might find it boring to go back to it. USE that
first exposure to click the dog.
Drop the target on the floor,
as unobtrusively as possible, about 3-5 feet from where you
are located (within almost touching distance of where you
are standing or sitting). Don't throw it like a
Frisebeen and do not point to it or tell the dog to "go see"
it. When the dog checks it out on his own, CLICK and
TREAT.
At this point your dog will
begin to try to do things that have, in the past, resulted
in him getting a treat. He will hang around by you. He
will sit and look at you expectantly. He might paw you,
whine, bark in your face, lie down, roll over, play dead, or
anything else that you may have taught him. He might try to
go for the treats in the bowl or pocket! ALL OF THIS IS
NORMAL. Do not be tempted to "help" him by showing him the
target etc. You must ignore everything he is doing. Do not
stare him in the eye as this might freeze him up. Cross
your arms, look away, sigh, cross your legs, look up at the
ceiling, look at your watch, fiddle with your hair, etc.
This type of stuff is the ONLY clue you can give your dog
that he's not getting anywhere with his behaviour! Sooner
or later, he will shrug his doggie shoulders and give up,
and then will probably begin sniffing around the room and
will probably accidentally hit that target!! CLICK, use
your voice GOOD BOY, and five or six big ole yummy treats!
Your dog will now probably try
the same old stuff he tried in #4. Ignore. Wait. Now that
he's gotten such a big reaction and such lovely treats he
may try longer. WAIT. Remember not to stare right into his
eyes. Even if the dog lies down and appears to have "quit,"
WAIT. Get up and sit back down again, see if that gets him
up. Just don't give him any commands. Sooner or later he
will hit that target again.
Repeat until dog "gets it."
Most dogs need 4-6 clicks and then they start getting this
funny look on their face and walk slowly over and look at
you and look at the target. After that, they usually start
running back and forth to the target. Once you see that
they understand, stop the session with a big reward. End on
a good note, always!
Practice having the dog target
in short training sessions in different rooms and with the
target in different spots. Make the target further away
from you, up on a chair, hold it in your hand, put it under
the coffee table, etc. Make sure you don't work for more
than about 2-5 minutes as this is hard mental work for the
dog.
Naming the Behaviour
After the dog is reliably doing
the behaviour in a few different situations, begin saying a
command word just as the dog is about to touch the target.
Literally 1/2 a second before you would click the actual
behaviour, say a command word. This means that you have to
wait for the dog to really and truly commit to the behaviour
before saying anything. Soon your dog will learn to
associate the behaviour with the command word.
Click for every time the dog
does the behaviour at first. Gradually, just use your voice
to mark the behaviour and then reward with a treat. Slowly
begin randomizing your rewards to make the behaviour stay
strong.
A Step Further! Shaping
So now you've taught your dog
to touch a target, probably with his nose or paw. Now you will
begin learning how to shape behaviours.
Think about dolphin shows. How in the
world did the dolphin trainers get the dolphins to do back-flips?
They couldn't just sit around and wait for back-flips like we sat
around and waited for the dog to touch the target...they might get
old and gray before a back-flip accidentally happened. The answer
is shaping.
The dolphin trainer sits by the edge
of the pool waiting for the dolphin to stick its nose out of the
water. Click (actually with dolphins it's a whistle) FISH. The
dolphin then does the same things our dog did above...tries
everything...and finally sticks its nose out of the water again.
Whistle FISH. Repeat repeat repeat until the dolphin is sticking
its nose out of the water again and again and again for the
whistle. Now, the dolphin is expecting a certain result.
Now, the trainer makes a decision to
try to get an extinction burst. An extinction burst is what
happens when an expected result does not occur. (Picture what
happens when you put money into a vending machine and choose an
item. Expected result: item falls down after you push the button.
Nothing falls. Do you push the button again, pound the machine,
rock the machine, stick your hand into the machine? Those are all
part of an "extinction burst." They happen just before you decide
to quit trying). In this case, the dolphin EXPECTS to get a
whistle when it sticks its nose out of the water. That's what has
happened over and over, multiple times. So, the dolphin sticks its
nose out of the water and the trainer....DOESN'T WHISTLE. The
dolphin then, out of frustration, tries again. Nothing. The
dolphin tries again, but this time SURGES out of the water, and its
whole head comes out instead of just its nose. WHISTLE FISH. The
trainer now begins whistling/fishing only the "head out" attempts.
The trainer is now one step closer to that back flip! She will
continue to mark and reward the "head out" until it is really
reliable, then will withhold the whistle again to try to get "body
out." And so on and so forth until the trainer has shaped the
behaviour of "back-flip on command."
A great way to practice shaping is to
try the exercise called
"101 Things to Do with a Box"by Karen Pryor, dog book
author and former dolphin trainer. Do this just to get into the
practice of shaping, then have fun dreaming up all the neat stuff
you can teach your dog!
