Teach Your Dog Almost Anything With Clicker Training

Source: leerburg

Clicker Training Basics

The basics of clicker training are fairly simple, the most important aspects are timing the click correctly and the frequency of the clicks. The clicks must also be paired with a small treat.

Here's a simple list of the steps involved in using a clicker;

1. Grab your dog, clicker and a bag of small sized treats (small treats are best because they don't take your dogs attention away from the task being learned.)

2. You'll need to click every time your dog performs an action which is deemed as good. You must time it well, as soon as you see a desired action, click immediately.

3. You must be generous with your clicks, you don't need to see your dog perform the entire action your asking for the first time, but anything that could attribute to what you're ultimately trying to get at is good a should get a click.

4. After you have clicked once or a couple of times, you'll need to treat your dog. This ultimately teaches your dog that the click means "good" and also tells them they are going to be receiving a treat.

5. Remember that the frequency of your clicks is important. What I mean by that is you need to try to randomize how many clicks it takes for your dog to receive a treat. You can eventually make this less and less, however you always need to treat if you have clicked.

Here's an example to help you visualize how a dog learns. Imagine you were trying to teach a person to walk towards you, only using a clicker to guide them, no vocal or other signals were aloud. You would probably click every time they looked in your direction, right?  And then you would probably click every time they looked in your direction and moved towards you. This is exactly how you train your dog with the clicker.

Another good tip is to imagine you were a dog, only hearing a click to guide you, it would be difficult and you would definitely need your teaching to have sufficient timing so that it's clear what you did well.

Charging the clicker before use

This is very important, before you start to train with a clicker you must first pair the sound of the clicker with a positive stimulus, like treats and praise. Make it something your dog loves, this will improve their drive to learn and get the treat!

To charge the clicker you'll need to do several training sessions with your dog in which you just click, and treat, and again click and treat. Do this about 20 times per session, and do a few sessions over to increase how highly your dog values the click, strengthening the pairing between it and the positive, the treat.

Teach your dog how to nod "yes" with clicker training

Follow this list of steps clicking and treating for each step until the behavior has been taught. Break it down into several sessions and try to accomplish 1-3 steps each session;


1. Say command, move hand with treat down past dogs face so dog looks down.
2. Dog looks down, eye movement only.
3. Dog looks down and moves head down.
4. Nose moves farther down.
5. Bring hand down and back up with treat past the face so dog looks up.
6. Dog looks down and back up.
7. Dog looks down and back up more quickly, more defined.
8. Bring hand down, up, down, up.
9. Dog looks down and up once.
10. Dog looks down and up twice.
11. Dog moves whole head up and down.
12. Dog repeatedly moves down and up.

Hope this comes in handy for some of you trainers out there. I'll be doing some more clicker tips and training schemes later in another article.

Happy Training.

Introduction To Negative Reinforcement - Dog Obedience Training

What is negative reinforcement?

Negative reinforcement is a technique used to increase the future likelihood of a wanted behavior. It differs from positive reinforcement because rather than giving the dog a pleasant event for good behavior, it is the removal of a negative event on the arrival of the wanted behavior.

For example, pushing down upon your dogs back whilst trying to get your dog to perform the action 'sit' is a negative event for your dog. Immediately after your dog has began to sit down you remove your hand and stop pushing down. That is negative reinforcement, basically the removal a negative stimulus when your dog performs an action correctly.

Another excellent example where negative reinforcement should be used is as follows. When walking your dog on a leash, she pulls and lunges all over the place. You correct her by pulling on the leash in a sideways motion and then releasing the tension on the leash. Two training techniques are in play here, firstly, positive punishment - a technique we'll discuss in a later article, and secondly, negative reinforcement. In this case negative reinforcement commences immediately upon releasing of the tension on the leash, the tension is the negative event which is removed from the situation.

Negative reinforcement happens on a daily basis, whether you knew about this technique before reading this article or not, you have probably performed it with your dog. The exact opposite of negative reinforcement is negative punishment, which is the removal of a positive stimulus to decrease the likelihood of an unwanted behavior. A good example of this is turning your back or removing your attention from your puppy whilst playing and he has bitten too hard. This is a large topic an we'll definitely get back to it in a later article.

Happy Training.

Reduce Your Dog's Fear With Systematic Desensitization - Dog Obedience Training

Image: Ian Kahn / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Reduce Your Dog's Fear With Systematic Desensitization

Through Classical Conditioning it is possible to systematically desensitize your dog from fear to any situation of which it may have developed an emotional fear response.

A classic example in which desensitization can be examined. Dogs have been known to become afraid of cars after experiencing a traumatic experience such as a car backfiring at a close proximity.

To slowly remove your dog's fear response in this situation you could employ the technique of systematic desensitization. This technique requires two behavioral conditions to be met.

The first of which is consistantly creating a response which is incomatible with the fearful situation. For example, interjecting play, food or massage at the correct time (just before the fearful situation occurs) will elicit a positive response which is incompatible with fear. However it is possible for the fearful situation to inhibit eating, or the desire to play if it is an especially high level of fear.

The second condition in the desensitization process is to gradually expose the dog to the fearful situation in small increments. This lowers stress involved in the process of desensitization, and helps prevent a situation in which the dog could become more fearful.

So, how can you use this technique yourself, well heres a list to explain that;

1. Before starting with the desensitization process you should plan the steps you are going to take, this is to ensure you allow small enough increments for the dog to benefit. Think how you can slowly introduce your dog to the fearful situation.

2. Take some snacks for your dog with you, and begin by taking a deep breath and being relaxed as possible, remember dogs will read your body language to determine how comfortable YOU are with the situation.

3. Approach the fearful situation, and offer your dog the distraction of the treat at this point. Watch your dog and look out for signs of fear, or his/her regular reaction to the stimulus.

4. Try to beat the fear before it starts. Remember the most important thing is to slowly introduce to your dog. Do one little step, reward and leave. Come back the next day and try the next step on your list.

Image: Stuart Miles / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Below is an example of a systematic desentization hierarchy, we'll use the fear of cars example for simplicity;

LEAST FEARFUL

1. Car in driveway without engine running.
2. Car in driveway with engine running.
3. Car moving along the driveway.
4. Car passing at a distance of 10 metres.
5. Car passing at a distance of 5 metres.
6. Car passing at a distance of 3 metres.

MOST FEARFUL

Hope this helps some of you systematically desensitize your dogs fear away!

Happy Training.

Dog Breed Info: Labrador Retriever

Labrador Retriever

Did you know Labs are one of the most popular dog breeds in north america ?

Avg. Weight (male): 60-88 lbs
Avg. Height (male): 22-25 in

The Labrador Retriever is a very popular and well known breed. They are known for having very playful, loyal tendancies. Labs come in a variety of coloured coats usually black, brown and yellow, the shade can vary a lot too. Labs have short dense fur, and are moderate shedders. I would agree they are somewhat of a hypoallegenic breed, as I get terrible allergies from some dogs, but my lab doesn't even make my nose twitch.

Labs love to swim, and can be highly motivated and focused. They have great potential as search and recsue dogs because they are highly intelligent, respond well to training and exceed in finding, and perhaps retrieving objects or persons. Labs are awesome!

Introduction to Positive Reinforcement - Dog Obedience Training

Praise goes a long way for a dog.

What is positive reinforcement?

Positive reinforcement increases the future likelyhood of the responses it follows. A response is the action performed by the dog after you have given a specific command. Take the command "sit" for example.

The desirable outcome of the command "sit" is obviously for the dog to sit. When the desired outcome is achieved it must be immediately positively reinforced for the dog to understand that what he has performed was good.

Positive reinforcement comes in many forms but most notably consists of food/treats, petting, play, praise. This "treat" allows the dog to pair a new stimulus (in this case its the action of sitting on command) with the positive feelings of eating a treat. It's important to understand that food, petting, praise and play are positive things for dogs instictively, basically you don't need to condition the dog to love food, it already does. It's for this reason that positive reinforcement is so powerful in teaching dogs what is right and whats not.

Teaching a dog what is not right can be achieved through negative reinforcement, a topic we'll cover in another article. Another way to encorage good behavior is to aid the primary reinforcer (the treat), with a secondary reinforcer. Secondary reinforcers allow the dog a chance to expect that you are going to present them with a treat, for example the word "Good!" or "Yes!!" are secondary reinforcers.

To correctly use a secondary reinforcer you must concentrate on the timing of your "Yes!", it must be immediately after the dog performs any wanted behavior, for example before the dog has even completely sat down (maybe she's just started to lower her back) you can provide a "Good!" to let her know if she completes the sit, she'll get rewarded. It works as an incentive and also is a means to tell the dog when they have done something correctly.

Clicker Training utilizes positive reinforcement and uses secondary reinforcers (the clicks from the clicker) along with primary reinforcers (small dog treats) to train dogs. The click is preferred as it is quick, emotionless, and produces the same uniform sound every time. We'll cover clicker training in depth in a forthcoming article.

In case I wasn't clear let's go over positive reinforcement again, this time in list form, gotta love those lists, anyways in the following scenario we'll be using the command "down" as an example;

1. Start in a quiet place free of distractions.
2. State the command to the dog, "Down".
3. If any wanted responses occur, slip them a secondary reinforcer(SR) a quick "yes" for example.
4. Keep providing SR's on a timely basis until your dog completes the command.
5. Give your dog the PR (treat) as a reward for his good work.
6. Don't be too harsh on the poor creatures, give them a treat for every couple of  yes' you provide.

Hope this all makes sense to everyone,
Happy Training!

How to read a dog's body language - Dog Obedience Training Lesson

What is your dog thinking?

Ever wonder what your dog was thinking or how it was feeling, well, reading a dogs body language is a simple and effective way of working out what sort of emotional state it's in, could be fearful, submissive, alert, relaxed, happy, dominant and many others.

Dogs instictually display their feelings subconciously through body language. If you consider that dogs can't speak then it's not hard to work out why your dog conveys so much communication through its posture, tail position, ear position and other physical displays.

A dog that is feeling fearful will display the following;

- ears back
- tail down and between the legs.
- head down.
- may try to make themselves look smaller.
- growling, baring teeth.

A dog that is submissive will display the following;

- ears back or relaxed.
- tail relaxed or slightly S-shaped
- may avoid eye contact.
- makes whining sounds.

A dog that is feeling alert will display the following;

- ears forward, or towards the stimulus(sound).
- tail up.
- standing in a prepared position.
- eye contact, intensely focused.

A dog that is feeling relaxed/happy will display the following;

- ears relaxed.
- tail up or down, possibly wagging.

A dog that is dominant will display the following;

- ears forward, relaxed.
- tail straight up.
- standing tall, relaxed and less excited than the submissive dog.
- less whining more growling.

A dog that is feeling aggressive will display the following;

- ears forward, alert.
- tail up or horizontal, straight and firm.
- hackles up (hair on back stands).
- growling, baring teeth.

This is just a basic guide on dog body language and shouldn't be used to conduct any sort of behavioral testing. Much more is needed to fully understand how a dog is influenced by its surroundings, as many things can change a dogs mood, like a squirrel running up a tree for example. Silly squirrels.

Dog Breed Info: German Shepherd

German Shepherd Dog 

Did you know German Shepherds are also known as Alsatians ?

Avg. Weight (male): 66-88 lbs
Avg. Height (male): 24-26 in

The German Shepherd is a large breed of dog originating from Germany. It was bred for use in herding and guarding sheep. It's a popular choice of dog for use in police and military roles due to its size, strength and intelligence. German Shepherds are very loyal and protective by nature and make an excellent member of the family.