Editorial

National Animal Welfare Week

Positive Dog Training

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Positive Dog Training

5-Steps to Basic Clicker Training — Contributed by Toh Cheng See

Clicker training provides dog owners with an all new easy way to teach their pets good manners and tricks. It works on the principle of conditioning and is fast and positive — never involves punishment, and helps strengthen the bonding between owner and pet.

And when a pet has learned what to do, one can fade out the clicker and treats and use praise and petting instead.

Even if you've never trained a pet before, you can start with these first five steps:

Step 1 — Introducing the Click
Begin by preparing the treat. Cut up your dog's favourite food into small pieces. Make sure the food is easy to chew.

Pick a quiet place. Get your treats ready in a bowl or in your pocket. To start, get a treat ready in your hand. Hold the clicker in your other hand. Click and give the treat to your dog. Repeat a few times varying the timing between the click and the treat.

Note: Keep the hand with the treat behind your back. Always click first before giving the treat.

Step 2 — The Sit
Hold a lure in front of your dog's nose. Move the lure up and back towards your dog's eyes. Your dog will follow the lure and therefore move to a sit. The moment it's rump touches the floor, ‘CLICK’ and ‘TREAT’.

Question: My dog stands up and moves backwards instead of sitting. What shall I do?

Answer: Move to a wall. Position your dog with its back close to the wall. In this way it will not be able to find space to stand up and move backwards.

Step 3 — Down
First, get your dog to sit. Then hold a lure in front of its nose and move it down between its front paws. It will move to a down position. The moment it moves to the down position ‘CLICK’ and ‘TREAT’

Step 4 — Timing
Timing of the click…The timing of the click is crucial. The click is to send the signal to the dog that it has done exactly what you want it to do in order to get the treat. This is crucial in the initial stage when you first introduce the command to the dog. Remember, do not treat before you click.

Initially ‘CLICK’ the instance it moves into position. Once it has mastered the command, slowly lengthen the duration of the sit/down before you ‘CLICK'. This teaches the dog to stay in the sit and down position.

Step 5 — Latency
Latency is the timing between the command and the action taken by the dog. The goal is to achieve zero latency. To do this, click only for response that is performed immediately after the command. Ignore and do not click for slow responses.

More info available from www.clickertraining.com