Understanding Dogs Part 9 – What Is Clicker Training?

Keller and Marian Breland made the basis of the modern clicker coaching movement. In the mid-1940s, the Brelands were the 1st to apply clicker coaching to coach dogs. The movement did not become favored till the early 1990s when Karen Pryor and Gary Wilkes partnered up and started to give conventions on clicker coaching. Pryor is a retired dolphin tutor and writer of Don’t Shoot the Dog : The New Art of Teaching and Coaching ( Bantam ).

Though Don’t Shoot the Dog is not a “how-to” coaching book, it provides some general rules based totally on the ideas of operant conditioning for influencing behaviour. In the meantime , Wilkes is an animal behaviorist and since 1987 the premier practitioner and teacher of clicker coaching. ( for more info about Wilkes and clicker coaching, go to www.clickandtreat.com. ) Clicker coaching is based totally on the ideas of operant conditioning ( see the section earlier in this chapter ).

The dog is first trained to link the clicker sound with getting a treat, an agreeable experience. After the dog associates the click with getting a treat, the coach has 2 options :

* Option one : The coach can wait till the dog voluntarily offers the specified behaviour on his very own , for example sit. When the dog sits, the coach clicks, announcing the end of the behaviour, and strengthens the behaviour with a treat. This option works very well with extroverted dogs that may offer a spread of behaviors in the hope that one of them will get them a treat. An introverted dog, on the other hand, may show small interest in the game. The “wait and see what happens” approach, depending on the dog, could be a long process and extremely intense for the dog – he may stop offering any behaviors and just lie down.

* Option two : The tutor doesn’t have the wherewithal or patience to hang about for the required behaviour to occur, so he prompts the behaviour.

Again, in the case of the Sit, the coach uses a treat to get the dog to believe the sitting position, and when the dog sits, the coach clicks, marking the end of the behaviour, and gives the treat. Manifestly , this approach is far more efficient than waiting for the dog to supply the required behaviour on his very own.

After the dog doggedly offers the behaviour of sitting, for which he’s rewarded with a click and a treat ( positive beefing up ), the tutor then adds a cue to the behaviour, like a command or signal, or both. The tutor waits till he thinks the dog is going to sit and claims / signals “Sit.” When the dog does, the tutor clicks and treats.

Now the dog understands the cue of “Sit,” the coach loses the click and treat when the dog offers the behaviour on his very own ( negative punishment ). If the trainer is searching for a different behavior, he may say “Wrong” or “Oops” to convey to the dog that he would like something else ( positive punishment, but really a half-breed, meaning “Try again” ).

With a clicker the coach can mark the end of the required behaviour with higher accuracy than he will with oral praise, meaning more clear communication with the dog. Though the dog does all of the work, clicker coaching needs enthusiastic powers of observation and split-second timing to mark the end of the required behaviour and lots of patience.

The final object of any coaching is to have your dog reply reliably to your commands.Ideally, he replies to the 1st command.

Telling your dog to do something and have him ignore you is exasperating. Think of Tommy’s reply re decisions. Do you need to educate Tommy to think he’s got a choice of replying to you? We do not think so. We think you would like a dog that understands, after you have trained him, that he must do what you let him know.