Clicker Training

Using the Clicker

Buster can wear me sometimes. I find it happening most on the weekends when we are at home. There is so much more to get into, Rusty to wrestle with, cats to chase, and horse poop to eat.  I catch myself saying only negative things to him: "NO", "STOP IT!", "OFF", "QUIT".  It's not very enjoyable and it's not good for one's psykie (sp).

At the office things are different because if he gets up, I take him for a walk and we are moving. While as we were headed for one of our walks out of the building I ran into a guy and we started talking. He used clicker training. I had tried the clicker with Max, but never quite got the hang of it. When I got home I checked out a few videos on YouTube (http://youtu.be/omZt5Eu8nfE).

I think it is called operant training.  You use the clicker to quickly acknowledge the positive behavior and then follow it up with a reward.  Dogs can do things so quickly that the more immediate you can give them a response, the more quickly the dog will learn.  Some people have used the analogy that when you "Click" the clicker think of it like the shutter of a camera and you are taking a picture of the behavior you want to reinforce.

It seems you have to learn a few things before moving forward, but I thought I had a clicker around the house somewhere.  After digging around in the den, I finally found it and it still worked.  I started by "loading" it, which is just clicking and giving a treat.  Teaching Buster that the clicker sound means a treat is coming soon.

We've just been working on it for a short time, but I can tell you that it has given some relief to all the negative commands.  I get to run the clicker and reward it with some food.  I've still got to learn more about it, but I think we'll give it a go for the next couple of weeks and see what we can accomplish.