Clicker Training Your Dog, For Better Training Results.

We've all heard of clicker training - but how do we do it and how will it help our dogs?

Hi Gang

We are all about the reward-based, Fun Not Fear® Methods at the Fun Not Fear® Club. We are also all about teaching dogs effectively and fairly.

Clicker training is a method of teaching our dogs that can really speed up learning, and is easy to learn how to do.

Once the click noise is taught, the click tells the dog that a reward is coming. The click never gets a sore throat or sounds a bit annoyed or sad. The click is consistently an unusal sound that is not the same as all the garbled chatter that comes out of our mouths. The click serves no other purpose than to give the promise of good things. So, it can be extremely effective in speeding up some training sessions.

I have used it for all kinds of things and Twyla is quite well versed in it. Sometimes dogs find it easier to pick out the sound of a clicker than they do the vocal marks we give them (like”yes!” or “good dog”), and so it is easier for them to pick out the moment they have done the action that caused the reward to happen.

A really good book on the method is “Don’t Shoot The Dog!” by Karen Pryor (R.I.P) which while having an unfortunate title, is an incredible read about training all kinds of animals with a clicker.

This week’s video is a short of me and Twyla, showing just how quickly a dog can be shaped to perform a behaviour using nothing but clicks and rewards.