great way to train your dog, the freindly way (Clicker Dog and Puppy Trainer)

Member Name: sambo1984

Product:	Clicker Dog and Puppy Trainer
Date:	03/09/08 (77 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: it works!

Disadvantages: none

This is a really good clicker as some dogs can be noise sensitive, especially dogs which are easily spooked and this clicker has an adjustable volume control which means you can make it louder or quieter depending on what your dog needs. if your dog is a sensitive dog then a quieter setting would be better to avoid startling it when letting it know it is exhibiting the correct behaviour. when you press the button, it moves a part in the middle which makes the noise.

This set comes with a booklet which guides you through some basic training issues which is really handy and is a step by step guide on how to teach things such as sit, down, stay, spin etc and is really handy, it can be a bit simplistic but nothing you cant work out for yourself.

I have had alot of success teaching an 8 year old dog tricks who only knew how to sit down before and even then only when he wanted to, now he stands on his back legs, sits, lies down, spins etc and seems to really enjoy the challenge. You can see he is really concentrating during out daily training sessions and sits perfectly for me and is really trying hard to work out what i want him to do.

Clickers help your dog to learn quicker as you cannot always treat instantly when your dog does something correct but you can click instantly and your dog associates the click with doing the right thing and therefore learns much easier and quicker, first you need to teach your dog what the clicker is by clicking and treating instantly several times, you will need to do this until your dog understands what this means, you can test this by waiting till your dog is distracted and then clicking and seeing if they look at your expecting a treat. once you have achieved this you can begin using the clicker for training.

there are 2 types of clicker trainging, luring and shaping.

Shaping is when you click your dog for any behaviour vaguely similar to the one you want. so for example when getting your dog to spin, if using the shaping method you might click when your dog looks to the left, and then gradually increase the demand from your dog so that eventually, looking to the left isnt enough, he needs to look further to the left, then he needs to bend to the left etc until you have your dog doing a full spin. this technique is useful for more advances training really where luring wouldnt necessarily work.

Luring involves your using a food treat or a toy to lure your dog into the position you want then clicking as soon as the position is achieved, for example with sitting, hold a treat/toy infront of your dogs nose and lift the treat upwards and slightly back over your dogs head. he should naturally sit down in order to follow the treat and as soon as his bottom touches the floor, click and treat. when your dog is doing this reliably every time you can start to use the command word 'sit' and a had signal. eventually you wont need to use the lure and your dog will respond to the verbal cue and hand signal alone.

Tt first you will need to be very quick with the gap between clicking and treating so the dog still understands this connection, eventually when your dog is doing the first stage well you can click and treat randomly between 1-5 seconds after the click, but always treat when you click, even if you click by accident, after a while when your dog is doing what you want every time you can start to give a food reward 1 in 3 times and give verbal / physical praise the other times and eventually you will only need to treat occasionally when your dog does exceptionally well.

Clicker training is a fun and easy way to train your dog and sitting is only one thing you can do, you can use clicker training for all aspects of your dogs obedience training.

A fun think to clicker train your dog is to hide behind his paw, i.e get him to cover his face with his paw. you can do this by sticking a bit of masking tape or a bit of post it note (something not very sticky) to your dogs head between his eyes and when he puts his paw over his eyes to try remove it click and treat, keep doing this and then eventually introduce the comand ' hide' or whatever you want to use and soon enough you will have your dog 'hiding' on command

remember, only ever teach one trick at a time so as not to confuse your dog and only do clicker training for between 5-15 minutes 3 times a day as it is mentally tireing for your dog

Have fun!!

Summary: great way to teach your dog tricks and let it know it is doing well