July 31st, 2008
By Eric Letendre
A clicker is a great training tool. It helps communicate to your dog. In order for a clicker to work you have to get your dog to associate the sound of the clicker with something good like a treat. When you first start using a clicker all you do is pair the sound with a treat. Over time your dog will know that she is getting a treat when you click. Now you can start to use the clicker to reward and shape behavior.
Step 1: Always remember to get your dog’s attention before you give a command.
Step 2: Teaching attention can be confusing for your dog. If you say your dog’s name and then hold the treat up by your eyes, your dog will focus on the treat. We want your dog to look into your eyes even if there is no treat there.
Step 3: Start by holding the treat up by your eyes, as soon as your dog looks into your eyes click and then treat your dog.
Step 4: Practice a few times. When your dog starts to look into your eyes every time you say your dog’s name start to move the treat away from your face. Chances are your dog will follow the treat.
Step 5: Hold your arm out but gently say your dog’s name until your dog looks you in the eye. The second your dog looks into your eyes click and treat.
Step 6: Keep practicing until you can hold your arm out with the treat in it but your dog is looking in your eyes. Start to extend the amount of time that you have your dog looking into your eyes. Start with two to three seconds, work up to ten seconds, twenty seconds etc.
Step 7: Now when you say your dog’s name your dog will look at you and then you can move on to teaching other commands. Good Luck!
Eric Letendre is a professional dog trainer from the United States and has been training dogs for over 20 years, teaching regular, average, every-day owners all over the world how to get the training results they want as fast as possible. Eric is also the author of numerous reports, the E-Book “101 Ways to Improve Your Dog’s Behavior,” “The Amazing Dog Training Man Book,” and produced and stars in his DVD “Secrets of a Professional Dog Trainer.”
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Eric Letendre is a professional dog trainer from the United States. For more than 20 years, he has been developing dog training "hacks" that have worked for dog owners all over the world. Eric operates from a home office or a laptop while traveling and draws on his experience and passion for dog training to show others how to develop a dog that is truly “Man’s Best Friend”.
Eric is the author of numerous reports, the E-Book “101 Ways to Hack Your Dog’s Behavior,” “The Amazing Dog Training Man Book,” and produced and stars in his DVD “Secrets of a Professional Dog Trainer.”
I have had a lot of success with clicker training for my border collie, who was two when I adopted him and had not had much training, but who has learned all of the basic obedience commands and now walks very well on a leash all because of the work I’ve done with him using a clicker. (He has never been to an obedience class.)
I have had more mixed success with my retriever-pointer mix. I’ve had a lot of success using the clicker to teach her new tricks and skills inside of the house, but outside is a different story. Her biggest problems are with recall and with walking on a leash without pulling. She has been through a traditional training class where the instructor eventually advised me to use a prong collar with her. The prong collar does help me keep her from pulling too much or from getting out of control in other situations, but whenever I have tried to transition to either a flat collar or an easy-walk harness using a clicker, it has never worked. Even with the harness on, she is still tempted to pull, and will often jump or lunge to the side to chase a cat or to follow a scent. Getting her to focus on me much at all is a challenge. Whereas in the house, she’ll look at me and sit when I say her name, outside she pretends she doesn’t hear me. And even when I click her for walking in the right place, she isn’t usually interested in her treat, and she usually won’t look at me.
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