Clicker Or No Clicker? What Do You Prefer?

[puppiluv]

We haven't got our puppy yet, but I'm busy reading as much as I can about training! It's been a long time since we've had a puppy and I know methods have changed, so I want to be sure I'm doing the right things! (have not even opened my old dog training book as I know it uses some harsher methods, choke chain etc) .

I've just started reading about clicker training, (not even knowing what it was at first ), and so far have encountered opinion both for and against it, and others which say it's just ok, only another method. So I wondered what everyone here thinks of it?

Does it work better than using words and how has it benefitted your training? If you didn't like it, what do you prefer? Also, we have children who, although not the puppy's primary trainers, would no doubt be asking the dog to do things at times. If we used a clicker, does this mean our kids would need to each be armed with a clicker as well? Would I need to train the kids to use the clicker, or is there a time when the clicker ceases to be used and only words?

Sorry if I'm not using the right terms, I'm just a beginner! I'm sure I'll want to learn more about it depending on the responses here!!

[Kavik]

I've found the clicker to be lots of fun! I don't use the clicker for everything, but it can be a fun additional tool and good for shaping tricks and complicated exercises. Not necessary for basic things like sit, but can be handy for attention, eye contact etc.

I use a whole bunch of things - toys, treats, pats, clickers, correction collars when necessary, luring, just depends on what I am teaching and which dog I am training.

[joanne76]

Yep I vote the clicker as well. Its easier to get that instant reward. i can click quicker than i can praise

[dogdude]

If you want the dog to be able to respond to your children too, then I would get them involved in the T.O.T method pinned at the top of the forum. You will also need to define your pack structure.

Clickers are not rewards for the dogs.......they are only markers. The dog is working for the food, not the click. The click is only a replacement for telling the dog he is doing what you want, at the precise moment he does it.

Some people find it easier to click rather, than say a quick yes. They both mean the same thing.

As others have said, they are good for training complicated tricks which involve lots of steps to learning them. A basic formal obedience retrieve is a good example. To the outsider, it looks quite simple and natural. To some dogs it is.....but others not. It is quite a complicated exercise to teach which has many steps chained together to get the final result reliably.

[shoemonster]

I found the clicker really good for getting my own timing right and now I can say yes in the right timing where before I would always say it too late!

So the clicker was a great way to teach me to get better timing and it didnt do the dogs any harm while I got there either lol

[Guest Clover]

I love clicker training, it is fun and my JRT boy gets all excited when the clicker comes out. It is great for harder exercises, you can realy pin point the right behaviour.

Goodluck with your future puppy, and most of all keep it fun and enjoy the learning experience .

[corvus]

I've just started clicker training with my puppy. He's really taken to it. I also used a clicker with my rabbit when I couldn't get her to accept being touched (she was a rescue). I'd tried everything else and it wasn't working, but the clicker worked really well. I think to some extent it makes the animal feel in control and that puts them at ease. Kivi Tarro gets bouncy when he sees the clicker, but he's only 9 weeks old and pretty much instantly gets distracted by, like, a leaf on the ground minding its own business.

The clicker itself is just a tool, but the training method of operant conditioning is great. If you don't want to use a clicker, you can use a word instead. Clickers are just clearer and faster, usually. I'm going to pair my click with a word for the times I don't have a clicker on me.

[Miss Danni]

Clicker training is great fun and best of all, it's hard to do any harm when you are using a clicker. So even if you stuff things up, and reward or mark a behaviour that you didn't mean to, it doesn't matter. Cant say that about the old traditional check-chain methods.

Here's a tip to get your clicker timing - I trained my handlers to do it before they were ever allowed to start clicking a dog! Take your clicker outside and have a friend with a tennis ball. Get the friend to toss the tennis ball straight up in the air and you try to click at the absolute top of the parabola, at the moment that the ball is in suspension. Most people are way out to start with, but after a few goes, they get better and more accurate. If you then apply that accuracy to your dog training, you wont go too far wrong.

And for your puppy, a great way to start is 101 Uses for a Cardboard Box. You encourage creativity in your pup with this game. Put a large cardboard box (appropriate to the size of the pup, large enough for him to be able to get in it) in the middle of the room and then sit in your favourite chair and let the pup in. (I am assuming that you have already "charged" the clicker and the pup knows what the click means). You then click the pup for any interaction/behaviours that he offers with the box. Great fun.

I hope that you enjoy clicker training as much as I do.

[MrsD]

I vote clicker as well, I do use a marker word as well but nothing beats the clicker for neutrality. There is no way that I would have got as far as I have in my training freestyle with Jarrah if I didn't use a clicker. I was a bit ambivilent about it when I first started but it gets a 10/10 from me now.

There are 2 important things to remember when you clicker train. The first is that the clicker is merely a "marker" ie it marks or tells the dog which behaviour is correct, so the better you are with your timing, the better you will be able to help your dog (try the excercise Danni mentioned above or similarly get a friend to drop a tennis ball & click as it hits the ground). And the second thing to remember is that you use a click to teach the dog - once you have taught the behaviour & linked it with the verbal command &/or signal you no longer use the clicker for that behaviour - just like if you taught your dog to sit by pushing on it's bum, once it's learnt, you no longer have to push on it's bum.

Have fun with it, I find it an incredible way to teach a whole range of behaviours that you would never be able to teach the "old fashioned" way with a check chain or compulsion .