Civil Pooch - Positive Dog Training by John Buginas, San Francisco Bay Area

Clicker training uses a small hand-held clicker to tell an animal they are doing the right thing. It is commonly used by marine and zoo animal trainers as a way to tell and animal that the behavior they just did was a good thing.

A clicker is practical for several reasons

• Provides consistant signal that is not shaded by the mood of the trainer
• Can be easily heard from a distance
• Is quick
• Is a simple way of training an animal without punishment

How does it work?

A clicker is used to signal to the animal that a reinforcer, possibly food, is coming. 

A clicker operates under the laws of both Classical and Operant Conditioning.

Charging the clicker

Before using a clicker to train an animal, the animal must learn that the 'CLICK' means food. This is done by clicking the clicker and then delivering a reinforcer. This is repeated until the dog responds to the clicker with an enthusiastic turn of the head or tail wag. This is known as charging the clicker.

It's important that EVERY CLICK is followed by a treat.

Using the clicker

Once the clicker is 'charged up', you can train a dog by doing the following.

1. See or cause a behavior you want
2. Click the clicker
3. Deliver the reward

Repeat this until the dog is doing the behavior correctly.

No need to use words. Words are not important yet.

Adding a cue

Once the behavior is happening most of the time, you can say the word you want to use as your cue (or command) just before the behavior is happening.

The new training sequence becomes

1. Say the word
2. See or cause the behavior
3. Click
4. Deliver the reward

Repeat this until the dog is doing what you want.

That's it!