Dog Health Questions: Clicker Dog Training?

Has anyone trained their dogs with the Clicker dog training program? Was it successful? Any tips? All answers appreciated! Thanks!

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Recommended Answer:
Clicker training is a great tool. It sends a clear, precise message to the dog of what they are doing correct.

It can be helpful to teach basic obedience, advanced commands, free shaping (making up your own tricks), potty training, and it can help create desired behaviors through "free thinking" (i.e. teaching a dog to be calm, getting a dog used to a cat or another dog, no barking, etc).

Once the dog understands that the simple click marks the exact second they did something right, it helps them learn to repeat that behavior more often.

I have used this on all of my personal and rescue dogs. I also offer classes dedicated to "clicker training", such as an into to obedience, intro to agility, and click'a'trick.

When used correctly (meaning you "charge" the clicker with your dog and your timing is accurate), this is a great and fun way to train your dog!

Charge = click, treat, click, treat, etc for 60 seconds and take a break. Repeat several times a day until your dog starts to grasp that the click = treat

Timing = Try getting a tennis ball and holding it at shoulder height. Drop it straight down and CLICK when it hits the ground. This will help you with your timing and accuracy.

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• I personally don't care for it. I find the sound to be rather annoying.
  It does work if done properly, but so do many other training methods.


• Clicker training is a great, positive method of training dogs.
  
  Find someone to teach you to do it correctly and/or get one (or more) of the better training videos (Gary Wilkes or Karen Pryor).
  
  Good Luck


• I had to train my dog for school and it worked pretty well. I imagine if you did it very consistantly (unlike me) you would get excellent results. (I did it off and on and got good results) ;)


• My dog was going to be put to sleep after being attacked, and he developed severe fear aggression toward other dogs. Nothing worked and in fact escalated using traditional, Cesar type methods. Clicker training was INCREDIBLY fast and my pups life was saved due to it.


• My puppies just finished their class and I thought the clicker was a good tool. My girls respond to it well. They know when the clicker means treats afterward.