Clicker Training.

[Dory the Doted One]

So I have finally given into it.

I have never been interested in clicker training before. Not that I was anti clicker, I just didn't see the point in changing something that had been working for me.

Until Now.

Dory has broken me.

Until now there has been no reason to really instill formal obedience into her as her variety of 'quirks' didn't significantly impact our lifestyle. And as she has a tendency to get rather limp and submissive whenever you try to teach her anything that doesn't involve food it was all a bit too hard. (Yes. I have been Lazy.)

However, recently she has been a total B!tch about doing even the small demands we have of her. And she has been flipping us the Paw. This is not on! So now, unless she is in the yard, in the house or in a crate she has a lead on her and she is walked everywhere on it. Even from the car to the house. If we give her a tiny inch, she jags a mile and will nick off with cotton wool in her ears. While she has done this on odd occasions, it was considered the exception rather than the rule. Now it is the Rule, and not the exception. Hence Lead At All Times.

My next plan is to take back a little power and teach her a few tricks. But aside from 'touch', 'shake hands' and 'speak on command', I have not ever taught a dog tricks.

She will heel, sit, drop, wait etc. When she knows there is treats on hand. Picture perfect. Mostly. But if she suspects you have nothing on you...well...we can all go jump. Unless you give her a very firm command...and then she does the limp dog thing. Rolls on her belly and tries to act all cute and submissive. If you encourage her back on her feet and try again...same process. I could tear out my hair! And thus began my journery of just not giving a fag.

Until now. We've had one to many flippings of the paw.

My Training Plan, is to start with incorporating a Clicker, but I have no idea how to do this. Please don't ask me to buy a book! I don't have the cash and I never read them anyways. Links to some great websites would be nice! Sadly my eyes glaze over when I do searches and I was hoping some of you guys might have some links neatly bookmarked for such occasions as Gumbies asking for Clicker Advice. Training at a club isn't really an option either as everytime I plan something, something else comes up.

She has a number of very cute and amusing behaviours I would LOVE to cue to commands. If you use voice she stops what she is doing, so haven't been too successful and lazy kicked in.

But mostly I want to start with trick training so we can rebuild a bond and a habit of responding to commands. I want to bring lots of fun into the mix before I start to crackdown on her.

I find it difficult to get a balance between nicey nice she will respect and respond to and firmness that she won't just roll on her back in response to. And also getting her to understand that whether or not I have a treat in my pocket, you just have to DO IT.

She seems to like the Clicker. I borrowed one today, and when I was standing in the kitchen and she was down the other end of the house she came running pretty quick smart with happy smiles when she heard it. Haven't actually seen her that happy in a little while.

Now I just have to get a Clicker Clue and work out how to do this properly so I don't ruin the chance and instil bad habits that will be hard to reverse.

[corvus]

Search for kikopup on YouTube. She has tons of great clicker videos, both for tricks and general skills.

It's not hard to get a typical dog excited by clicker training if you keep the reward rate high (like, one click and treat every few seconds) and the steps easy. Don't fall into the trap of waiting around for her to do something. If she's not doing anything, find something tiny to click, like a shift of weight, even. Once they are excited by clicker training IME it is not difficult to get them to do what they are told. You cue it and if they know the cue, they do it. You just have to keep practicing a lot and make sure you take what you do at home on the road as well.

I would say start with targeting nose and paws. It's easy and builds confidence and you can build just about any behaviour imaginable with targets. The more precise you are in your criteria the more precise she will be. One of my frequent early mistakes was to not have a clear idea of the behaviour I wanted. A sit is not just a sit. You should have some idea exactly where she should sit when cued, which direction she should be facing, and what variations you will accept. I have taught a lot of sloppy behaviours with broad criteria and I always regret it. I'm trying to get into the habit of knowing exactly what I want down to very small details.

[Bully]

"When pigs fly! : training success with impossible dogs"by Jane Killion is a brilliant book and the Charles Sturt Library has it 'cos I got them to order it

[Simply Grand]

Hmm, so I started a response but am too tired now to think properly, sorry.

I agree with Corvus about watching the kikopup videos on YouTube, and whatever else you can find, they are helpful.

My first comments are though:

1. Step 1 of the clicker is to "charge" it, which means teaching the dog that click = reward, so when the dog is just hanging out watching you, you click then treat immediately lots of times, so that the dog automatically associates the click with a reward.

2. You mentioned that Dory came running when she heard the click, that's not really what you want. The click itself isn't meant to elicit a response, it is just an indication that whatever the dog has just done is what you want her to do, so when she does a behaviour you want, you click exactly as she does it, then you can treat within the following seconds, and she should understand that it was when she heard the click that she was doing the right thing, even if the treat came later.

See how you go, I'll come back to the thread and see if I can be more useful during the day time!

[Erny]

Lol ..... I love clients who are where you are at, DTDO. They are just so ready to be the consistent, assertive but calm leaders that you need them to be to move through and beyond unwanted dog behaviours.

Great that you have found an angle of training you would like to explore and I fully encourage you to do so - I'm sure you'll find it fun. I'd suggest that with your new found dedication and calm assertiveness, you probably don't need use of a clicker (I use the word "yes" as my dog's marker word, rather than the sound of the click from the clicker) but you and your dog might find it fun, and the novelty of it to your dog might assist you, so I say kudos and go with it .

I agree with teaching target. As a start, try teaching your dog to target your fist. Because it is late I'm going to be lazy and paste THIS link. Don't agree with the pop-corn suggestion but you can substitute that with a better treat. There's lots of links to targetting if you'd like to google, and each will probably have some little different quirk to it, but just to get you started :D.

You could also teach your dog to "weave" through your legs. Use lure, click (mark) and treat for this, but work to move off using food as a lure quickly. You can teach your dog static leg weave (ie you stand still, legs apart) or motion weaving (ie you take a step forward and as you do your dog moves through; take another step and dog moves through the other way; and so on) in this way and it is a fun thing to do to break up the other of your obedience training.

You could also teach your dog to walk backwards using the same method as above.

Edited November 18, 2010 by Erny

[Dory the Doted One]

Yay. We taught Dory to beg. She is starting to consolidate it at the moment, but we are getting more hits without having to lure her too much. She's a smart cookie and actually seems to be a bit happier since we have implement the small changes.

I'm following up or thru with all suggestions.

[corvus]

Yaaay!

[luvsdogs]

You can join Karen Pryor's site at http://www.clickertraining.com/ there's tons of stuff there as well. I also recommend kikopup.

[Paul Bright]

You can join Karen Pryor's site at http://www.clickertraining.com/ there's tons of stuff there as well. I also recommend kikopup.

Agree here... Karen Pryors Stuff is great.

Basically to get started there are only 3 things you need. Firstly you need your dog, secondly a clicker, and lastly some treats. Clicker training works greats for all dogs, or all breeds or all ages, so this part should be handled easily.

I can't remember if you have a clicker or not, but you can pick these up really cheaply. Less then $5.

With the treats, just use anything your dog really loves. My golden retriever loves food, so for me food works great.

After you have those 3 things, your next step is to charge the clicker as previously mentioned. There are a number of ways to do this. One way is to lay treats on the floor and as your dog eats a treat, press the clicker. Do this a few times and you'll dog will soon understand the the clicking sound = a reward.

After that it is then a matter of breaking down the tricks/behaviour you are wanting, and as your dog does them, reward by using the clicker.

Good luck, if you have any questions just let me know

[poodlefan]

Dory:

She will heel, sit, drop, wait etc. When she knows there is treats on hand. Picture perfect. Mostly. But if she suspects you have nothing on you...well...we can all go jump.

She's selectively obedient based on her perception of whether or not she'll be rewarded.

Adding a clicker to to mark desired behaviours will not alter that. What you need to do is randomise her reward schedule.

Teaching tricks won't improve general obedience unless you manage to teach her that her obedience is not predicated on whether or not you have food. If you don't want to do that then best you always have it.

A clicker is a tool. It isn't a cue or a reward - it just indicates to the dog that the behaviour it has offered is what you want. Its not a training method and it doesn't replace weaning a dog off luring or randomising reward schedules.

Edited November 24, 2010 by poodlefan

[corvus]

Or, an alternative interpretation is that your cue is whether you have food or not. I tend to use a fixed reward schedule and reward every time a behaviour is performed on cue. But I mix up where I ask for it and what I reward with. That way the cue means "if you do this you will get a reward" rather than "if you do this you will get food". Could be the dog has just realised that getting a food reward is dependent on there being treats in sight, so the cue doesn't even mean "if you do this you will get food" anymore, but more like "check for treat availability". This can happen all too easily if someone attempts to introduce a variable reward schedule but skips steps or hurries it. It's very tempting to do! I do it all the time, but currently have a dog that won't let me get away with it. It's baby steps or I won't get the behaviour I want. It will break down sooner or later. So I've learnt the hard way to be patient.

I also learnt the hard way to be very conscious of how consistent my cues were compared to environmental cues that were going on around us. I want my cue to be that I just gave the cue, not whether we are at home or at the dog park, for example. It takes a bit of mixing things up. One of my dogs is insanely good at coming up with his own cues. He's always anticipating. The only thing for it is to mix up training sessions so much that the only thing he can rely on as a constant is my cue. He can't be allowed to rely on the location, the time of day, the sequence of events, the reward, his appetite, what I have in my hand, the direction he's facing... it all has to be unpredictable so that the cue is his only reliable reference for what will happen next.

[55chevy]

So I have finally given into it.

I have never been interested in clicker training before. Not that I was anti clicker, I just didn't see the point in changing something that had been working for me.

Until Now.

Dory has broken me.

Until now there has been no reason to really instill formal obedience into her as her variety of 'quirks' didn't significantly impact our lifestyle. And as she has a tendency to get rather limp and submissive whenever you try to teach her anything that doesn't involve food it was all a bit too hard. (Yes. I have been Lazy.)

However, recently she has been a total B!tch about doing even the small demands we have of her. And she has been flipping us the Paw. This is not on! So now, unless she is in the yard, in the house or in a crate she has a lead on her and she is walked everywhere on it. Even from the car to the house. If we give her a tiny inch, she jags a mile and will nick off with cotton wool in her ears. While she has done this on odd occasions, it was considered the exception rather than the rule. Now it is the Rule, and not the exception. Hence Lead At All Times.

My next plan is to take back a little power and teach her a few tricks. But aside from 'touch', 'shake hands' and 'speak on command', I have not ever taught a dog tricks.

She will heel, sit, drop, wait etc. When she knows there is treats on hand. Picture perfect. Mostly. But if she suspects you have nothing on you...well...we can all go jump. Unless you give her a very firm command...and then she does the limp dog thing. Rolls on her belly and tries to act all cute and submissive. If you encourage her back on her feet and try again...same process. I could tear out my hair! And thus began my journery of just not giving a fag.

Until now. We've had one to many flippings of the paw.

My Training Plan, is to start with incorporating a Clicker, but I have no idea how to do this. Please don't ask me to buy a book! I don't have the cash and I never read them anyways. Links to some great websites would be nice! Sadly my eyes glaze over when I do searches and I was hoping some of you guys might have some links neatly bookmarked for such occasions as Gumbies asking for Clicker Advice. Training at a club isn't really an option either as everytime I plan something, something else comes up.

She has a number of very cute and amusing behaviours I would LOVE to cue to commands. If you use voice she stops what she is doing, so haven't been too successful and lazy kicked in.

But mostly I want to start with trick training so we can rebuild a bond and a habit of responding to commands. I want to bring lots of fun into the mix before I start to crackdown on her.

I find it difficult to get a balance between nicey nice she will respect and respond to and firmness that she won't just roll on her back in response to. And also getting her to understand that whether or not I have a treat in my pocket, you just have to DO IT.

She seems to like the Clicker. I borrowed one today, and when I was standing in the kitchen and she was down the other end of the house she came running pretty quick smart with happy smiles when she heard it. Haven't actually seen her that happy in a little while.

Now I just have to get a Clicker Clue and work out how to do this properly so I don't ruin the chance and instil bad habits that will be hard to reverse.

I would have thought the clicker is an addition to food luring on the same principal resulting in a situation without the clicker and food, the dog won't respond. I agree with Erny on the marker words, the less equipment required the better, but to me it sounds like the dog hasn't learned clear boundaries of the behaviours that are not acceptable.