Dog Training Advice: Clicker Training A Dog

If your dog has a good food drive, clicker training is an excellent way to channel that effectively into training. 

Clicker training allows us to ‘mark’ an exact behaviour we want from our puppy at the precise moment they do it, and for them to understand a reward is on its way. 

Why Is It Important?

Dogs associate the food they get as a reward with the behaviour they are doing when they get it. 

A good example of this is ‘sit’. Lots of people tell their dog to sit and when they move forward to reward the dog, it stands up to take it. This can be confusing for the dog as it starts to think ‘sit’ means to sit and then stand up again. 

Where To Start

The purest way to start clicker training your dog is to identify positive behaviour your dog does regularly, such as looking at you.  

Here are some key points to remember when starting clicker training:

• Have treats in your pocket and clicker in hand 
• Avoid making a noise to get your puppy to look at you, we want them to learn organically 
• Patience and an inquisitive dog will usually cause them to glance at you
• It doesn’t have to be a full head movement, it can be just a flick of the eyes 
• At the exact moment your dog looks at you, press the clicker and give them a treat! 

Your dog will be more engaged with you now.

They won’t understand the process to start with, but dogs are problem solvers, so keep going and they will work it out. 

Progress The Game

Once this game becomes easy for your dog, you can make it more difficult to reinforce their understanding of how to solve the problem. Instead of having treats in your pocket, have them in your hand. Hold enough of them to make it a big scent target, and hold them away from your body. 

To solve this problem, your dog now has to make an exaggerated head movement to look at you. This is extra effort that will help your puppy understand what we want whilst teaching them to break their attention from distractions, something that is very useful later in life. 

First, your dog will be fixated on the treats in your hand, but with patience, they should look over to you.

Be ready to ‘mark’ the behaviour with the clicker, reward your dog with a treat, and repeat! 

When your dog has the hang of this, you can add a command to the behaviour, such as the dog’s name and the command ‘me’. Say this immediately after the click. 

Building Foundations

As with all dog training, repetition is crucial to forming strong behaviours. With good foundational training, the clicker can be applied to all areas of your dog’s learning. From toileting to recall. 

Once your dog has a clear understanding of the click, they will actively try to trigger it by offering behaviour. A win-win! You could, at this point, replace treats with a toy or affection as a reward.