Home Dog Training

Home Dog Training

Home dog training is quite popular nowadays, thanks to the high availability of reliable teaching guides and resources for beginning trainers. If you have a healthy, happy dog at home, there is no reason for you to not train it at home.

You don’t have to spend hundreds of dollars to pay for obedience lessons. If you have a clicker, and some form of reward for your dog, you are all set to teach him any action or behavior that you want him to perform. You can accomplish all of this through clicker training.

What is clicker training?

Clicker training is simply teaching a dog to perform an action because it will bring a positive experience to the animal (i.e. edible treats, toys, etc.).

Unlike more traditional forms of dog training, clicker training avoids the common pitfalls of animal training (e.g. the use of aversive control, direct commands, etc.), and uses more natural means of getting results during training.

Clicker training works extremely well because it teaches things to dogs in a phases. First, the dog is taught that a click will bring a reward. This is repeated many times to solidify the association between the metallic click, and the treat.

When this association has finally been made, the trainer can then proceed to teach the dog different tricks. The second set of associations uses nonverbal signals (such as hand movements). This practice emphasizes that the dog has to figure out on his own what you want it to do.

Demystifying clicker training

There are many misconceptions about clicker training that prevent people from using this simple method from training not only dogs, but also cats, and other pets. The most common myth about clicker training is that it doesn’t use any form of discipline.

That is clearly false, since trainers have been known to use non-aversive means of correcting bad behavior. When a trainer says “no” or “wrong,” the trainer is helping the dog understand which activities are target activities, and which ones are not.

The second most common myth is that when you start clicker training, the dog will forever be dependent on the clicker. Again, this is a misconception; dogs are very capable of responding to verbal, and nonverbal, commands. You can use gestures and words to tell your dog what you want it to do.

The third myth, that I hear all the time, is that clicker training cannot be used on other animals. That’s false, since clicker training has been used countless times on different animals (including parrots, and dolphins), and each time, the trainers got good results. Dogs are only the most commonly trained through clicker training.

That doesn’t mean that you can only train dogs. If you have a cat or a chinchilla at home, you can train those animals just as easily. You just need to know the basic strategies, such as loading and targeting, and you are all set to train your pets at home. Train one or ten – it doesn’t matter how many. As long as you have time to spare and a clicker, you can do it.

Dog Training at Home

Dog Training at Home

Many people believe that the best training can only be provided by professional dog trainers. Well I’m here to tell you right now that this cannot be further from the truth.

Adept dog trainers can certainly assist pet owners who do not have free time to train their pets at home. But if you have five to ten minutes to spare every day, then you can effectively train your pet. If you only have time for short training sessions, then the best option for you as a pet owner/trainer would be clicker training.

Clicker training defined

Clicker training is a method of teaching a dog to associate the sound of a click with a target action. A single click helps the dog associate the action that you want it to remember, with the treat or reward that you will be giving it after the click.

Clicker training is a form of operant conditioning wherein the animal is taught to perform an action because it yields a reward. An animal is taught a particular sequence, which allows it to differentiate between rewarding behavior and non-rewarding behavior.

Unlike classical conditioning, which often relies on verbal cues and hands-on intervention during training sessions, clicker training is unique because it relies on capturing target behaviors, and reinforcing these behaviors with rewards.

Clicker training your dog

The first thing that you should do when you are clicker training your dog is to perform the loading, or initializing, procedure. This procedure is necessary because it will help the animal associate the sound of the click with the reward that you are going to give it. You can perform the loading procedure anywhere; as long as you have the clicker and the treats with you, you can succeed.

This process is really quite simple – click, and give the treat. Each click has to grab the animal’s attention. If the dog was not paying attention at all to what you were doing, repeat until it raises its head in attention. When the dog starts paying attention to each click, reward it immediately. Most dogs create a concrete association between the click and the reward after 20 to 50 successful cycles.

We call them cycles because we aim for consistency during clicker training. Consistency can be achieved by timing the clicks. You can click every five seconds or every ten seconds, whichever works. You only need to click once per cycle. Do not overuse the clicker. Clicking multiple times will not help the animal understand the lesson at all.

When a series of clicks is used, the animal actually stops responding, because it waits for the clicking to stop before responding. The same principle applies when you are trying to teach your dog verbal signals. Don’t say “sit, sit, sit” when you want to teach your dog to sit, because the dog will become accustomed to waiting for three “sit” commands before performing anything. If a single word does not yield the desired action, simply repeat the command once and see what happens.

Dog Training Tips

Dog Training Tips

Training your dog at home may be one of the most rewarding activities known to pet owners. Just seeing your pet respond to cues and commands can bring immense satisfaction, because you will see concrete results from all of your training efforts.

Pet owners who are just starting out with their training sessions will often encounter small problems that can directly impede the progress of the dog. If your dog is not responding to more classical training approaches, you may want to try clicker training. Clicker training (or operant conditioning), emphasizes the relationship between target actions and rewards.

Since the association between rewards and actions are continually reinforced during training sessions, dog trainers have minimal problems when teaching their dogs new tricks. Clicker training is so simple that it can even be done by a ten-year–old child.

There are two indispensable elements that must always be present during clicker training: the clicker, and the treats. Some people offer toys, and even verbal praise, as treats. But for the purpose of quickly getting your dog’s attention, I highly recommend that you find a tasty treat that your dog will not mind eating again and again.

Expert tips for trainers

1. If the dog is not following your commands, it is possible that the dog has yet to establish a solid connection between the command, and the action itself. Review the lesson and repeat the cycles to see if the dog is responding to the nonverbal cues.

If the nonverbal cues are not working, that means the dog has made no association between the action and any signal. Go back to square one, and repeat the association games. Use the clicker to mark the target behaviors during the action, and not after.

2. Verbal signals can be added to the training equation only when the dog has become an expert in responding to nonverbal commands. Nonverbal commands are easier to master than verbal commands (this is why some folks who use classical conditioning often have a difficult time teaching the simplest of actions).

3. Training sessions should not be drawn out and boring. Ten minutes is already a long session for an active dog who has never been trained before. During the first few sessions, limit your training timeframe to just three minutes. If the dog responds well to the clicker training, it can probably complete 20 successful cycles in three to five minutes.

4. Don’t be harsh with your pet if it does not immediately respond to your commands. Review the information signal (the cue), and check to see if the dog has made the association between the cue, and action itself. If the dog looks unmotivated, the problem may lie in the reward that you are offering. Change the reward and see if the dog will respond.

5. Punishment should be limited to a neutrally toned word such as “wrong”. Don’t scold your pet for not understanding. It doesn’t help the animal learn, and the animal may associate training sessions with being scolded. That is never a good thing for home-trained dogs.