Puppy Clicker Training for Idiots
Clicking training puppies is way of teaching your dog to perform desired actions such as learning obedience commands or going potty outdoors. Punishment is not used in clicker training, just rewards to positively reinforce desired behaviors.
Clicker training is different than other forms of positive reinforcement in one significant way, and that is clicker training uses a click sound when the dog performs the desired behavior. A treat is then given to the puppy as a reward. A clicker, a small box you can buy at a pet store, produces the click or you can also just use your vocal cords.
If you give your dog a treat and make the click sound every time he sits in training, he will begin to associate the two things together. Your dog gets a clear signal from the click that he will associate with the behavior that he just finished performing. With verbal commands like “sit” you will not get the same consistency of sound as you will with a click which sounds the same every time it is made.
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An Introduction To Clicker Training Puppies
Clicker training puppies is a flexible training method that can be used to teach your dog many desired behaviors. To show you how clicker training can be used in combination with potty training, here is an example. If you would like to teach your puppy to go potty outside, choose a permanent spot which will be the one he always uses. To train your puppy to go potty outside, always go in and out of the same door and go over to the permanent potty spot each time.
Wait until your puppy starts to go potty. Click at the same time that he finishes going potty. Make sure you don’t click until after he is completely done or he might not finish. Hand your puppy a treat after clicking. It is important to time the click correctly in order for the puppy to associate going potty with the click and treat.
Using a click has the advantage that your puppy can begin to associate the click sound with his going potty outside and getting a treat. He isn’t rewarded with a treat and is not presented with the click sound when he goes potty inside the house.
Clicker Training Puppies Advantages
Clicker training puppies is advantageous in that it builds up desired behaviors by using clear signals and positive reinforcement. This helps to take a lot of the ambiguity out of the communication which happens frequently between humans and animals. To properly train your puppy to perform desired behaviors, it isn’t necessary to punish him. Training can be both rewarding and fun for both your puppy and you.
Puppies have very short attention spans, so clicker training puppies should only done for short amounts at a time. Training for about five minute intervals is about how long you should go with clicker training sessions. Basic obedience commands including, come, down, stay and sit can also be taught in addition to potty training using clicks. When teaching your dog obedience commands use the same steps that you did for potty training.
The sit command can be taught, but you need to wait and watch for him to sit. As soon as his back end makes contact with the ground, click the clicker and hand him a treat. As soon as it is clear that he has learned to associate sitting down with the click and getting a reward, begin introducing the verbal command of “sit” and then you can eventually stop using the click and he will sit with just the verbal command.
To discover the secrets to clicker training a puppy, click here for the top Dog Training Book Reviews
September 12, 2009 under 
Puppy Training
Tags: clicker training puppies, clicker training puppy
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Just one thought about the article, I watched a video which also explains some of the disadvantages of “clicker” training for pups. One of them is that they lose interest to follow your command if you don’t have your clicker with you. How true is this? Any thoughts?
Greetings,
Clicker training, like ‘hand signals’ can be very useful for quick results.
Puppies from most all breeds are very sensitive to ‘noises’ that interrupt or break into their environment, and the sound of the clicker gets their immediate attention.
Associating a number of clicks with a combination of a verbal command and a hand signal is a technique that I am trying to perfect.
My technique is to get spontaneous response from the combination of a click and hand signals that would substitute a particular verbal command.
The end result would be a little bit different from normal clicker training or hand signal training, to the extent that I can teach much more commands, so that I get different responses on the same single click, because of the different hand signal associated with the click.
I am a lrygectomee, I lost my voice to cancer of the larynx, and speak through the aid of a voice prosthesis inserted into my trachea via a hole in my neck. To activate the voice prosthesis I have to close the hole in my neck with my thumb, that means to talk I need to use a hand – So whenever I talk or use my voice one of my hands become used, and nothing else can be done with it – Get my problem?.
The major problem is, sometimes the prosthesis plays up, and then I am like a mute, cannot even make a noise, leave alone issue a verbal command.
I will post another comment on the level of my success later on.
Noel Benjamin D’Costa.
Interesting, I’ve never seen the clickers in the stores. Either way, my dogs will do anything as long as I’m holding a treat. They know everything I’m saying when a treat is visible. Not so much when there is no treat.
Using a consistent click noise as a signal that your dog gets a treat is a great idea. It is just like the story of pavlov’s dog who associated the bell with food. I guess just giving treats without the click would not work as well as the dog would not have an audio signal to reinforce the good behavior.
I prefer to use my voice, as opposed to a clicker, as I don’t know that I will have a clicker on my person all the time for the rest of my dog’s life… the idea is to pair a sound (the clicker – or in my case, your voice) with a positive motivator (reward) like food. Don’t think of food as bribery, either – think of it as their “paycheck”… remember that puppies are babies and have limited attention spans, so don’t expect a doggie Einstein at 6 months old
clicker training works i used it on all three of my shihzus and it works wonders i started when they were puppies getting them used to the sound of the clicker and then gradually i started using pieces of chicken when i used the clicker it did not take long for my dogs to associate the clicker with the chicken and training was easy when i wanted my dog to sit i used the clicker he sat and was rewarded with he chicken the same applied when he was off the lead and saw another dog i clicked the clicker rewarded my dog with he chicken and he did not go after the other dog it does work you just need to be patient but its a great way to train your dog.