Dog Clicker Training - First Steps

If you intend to use a clicker to train your dog the first thing you are going to have to do is teach your dog to respond to the clicker itself. The idea of using a clicker is to precisely mark a good behaviour and encourage the animal to repeat it. However, if the animal does not understand the clicker there is no point in using it.

The first thing you are going to do is create an association in the dog’s mind between the sound of a click and a reward. You want the dog to understand that the click means a treat is coming. Without this association, the clicker will mean nothing at all to your pet. You do not want the dog associating the click with any particular behaviour at this point. You simply want him to learn that a click means a treat.

Start your first session with the dog in a quiet area. Have many treats handy. You want to be able to get to them very quickly. Click the clicker and give the dog a treat. Once you have done this, turn away and allow the dog to go back to whatever it was doing. After short time, click again and give a treat. Repeat this at least twenty times.

Try to make certain that you are clicking when the dog is doing different things. Sitting, standing, moving, it does not matter, you just want to be sure that the dog is doing as many different things as possible during the clicks. At this point all you want him to learn is that a click means a treat.

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Practice this routine for a day or two. What you want to watch is how he dog reacts to the sound of the clicker. If your dog turns to you or looks for a treat when you click, you know that the dog is beginning to learn the association between the click and a treat. Once your dog has begun to make the association between the two events you can start to train your dog various commands and behaviours using the clicker.

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