Clicker training - your experiences please.

Has anyone ever tried to clicker train their dogs - we would love to read about it on here - please add your thoughts or questions on this thread.

I will let you into a little secret - I learned the art of clicker training from my pet rats.... yes, you can clicker train them quite easily - mine used to come out of their cages, ring a bell, walk along a platform and wait for their reward.... so, if I can clicker train rats then surely I can clicker train my dog.

First of all you need to get your equipment ready - dog ... check, clicker (I use the Company of animals one)...., Treats (tiny weeny small healthy treats is the key here).... Check....

Try to make sure you have plenty of time when clicker training your dog - preferably where there are no other distractions (other dogs, children etc) and you need to stay as focussed as the dog. If the dog is not in the mood for it and is too playful, sleepy or full of their tea then there really is no point in doing it. Training sessions I felt were best to be short and snappy and it is always best to leave on a high note.

So, I got Nibs (when he was a puppy) to come to me and as soon as he came I clicked the clicker and gave him his reward. I moved away and called him again... he faffed about and I ignored him, called him again and he came - click-treat. The click and treat being offered must almost be instantaneous - there is absolutely no point clicking the clicker and then grubbing around in your pocket for the treat - the association will not be there. We did this a few more times and then it was time to move on. I called Nibs, he came and as soon as he got to me I told him to sit. He just stood there looking at me - I held the treat in my hand and raised my hand a little - as his eyes followed the treat he sat down - click-treat. We continued with this for a few more tries and that was the end of the session - on a real high - I praised him and told him what a good boy he was. He also received the same proud praise as he ate his treats each time.

Later than day out came the clicker and we went back over come and sit and I was surprised how much he picked up. If I don't have the clicker with me I still use the same noise made by me clicking my tongue to use the technique when I don't have the tool to hand

There are lots of ways to then move from sit - if you hold the treat in front of their nose when they are sitting and then pull it down and towards you then again they follow and will associate the action with the word and those with the reward.

I will do a short video tomorrow of me trying to show Missy sit, down and roll over (which was just done as a bit of fun - it is not really an important command but it is good for me to be able to assess how quickly she can pick things up).

This is only my experience and of course there are lots of different techniques - I hope someone else has some too as it would be great to compare notes.

We don't use clicker with Nico, but a guy in one of our training sessions does. With Nico, we use word 'cues'. When he does something we ask him to do, ie sit, wait, down etc, we tell him 'yes' and give him a small bit of hotdog. Like Nibs associates the clicking sound with a treat, Nico associates 'yes' with food, and thus knows he is going to be rewarded. He never gets a treat for doing something we haven't asked him to and the word 'yes' is only used when he's going to get a treat, otherwise it devalues it. At the moment, Nico's on a fixed reward schedule, ie every time he does what we ask, he's rewarded with food & praise. When we get him into a sit and then a down, we say 'good boy' for the sit and 'yes' for the down, so that the association with 'good boy' is that food is coming. It also doesn't matter what he does after the down - he could do a back flip, karate chop a passing leaf or start doing the can-can - what we're marking is the down

Like you, we keep training sessions short - around 15 minutes and vary it to keep Nico's interest. A tip we've learnt is that when practicing downs, sits, stays and recalls at distance, the last one you should do is a stay. Otherwise, there's a tendancy for the dog to be so excited and eager to please, that they try to guess your instruction and will run to you, thinking you're about to do a recall. This way, training ends on a high and Nico/the dog doesn't pick up bad habits.

I think the only reason we didn't opt for a clicker device was that we'd inevitably lose it!