Hi everyone,

I want to start clicker training one of my kittens. She is 13 weeks and as bright as a button. Out of our 2 new kittens she is the more independent and it has taken her a few weeks to become more trusting of me unlike the other who is all over you and pretty manipulative!!

So, I have bought a clicker and been doing some research and watching videos on you tube.

What I want to understand is how the click noise adds more value over a vocal command to the behaviour you want. So far I haven't found this answer.

I feel that knowing will help me when I start.

I want to do the training for the cat's enrichment and for my own interest.

If anyone can help I would appreciate it.

You have clicker training a bit confused. The click does not replace a verbal command.
It marks the correct behaviour, it is not the cue for the behaviour.

When training an animal to obey a command (ie perform a specific behaviour on cue) you follow this schedule:

1) Lure the behaviour you want
2) Reward the animal when it performs the wanted behaviour.
3) Repeat.
4) When the animal gets the idea, you introduce the cue, eg your verbal command. Give this command, then lure as before, and reward.
5) Repeat.
6) As the animal gets the idea and links the cue to the behaviour, you phase out the lure (you will find most hand signals used in dog training are watered down versions of the movement used to lure the dog).
7) You should eventually get to the point where the lure is no longer needed, the animal responds to the verbal cue alone.

However there is one difficulty here... for the animal to understand that the reward is for the desired behaviour the reward must occur at the very moment the behaviour is performed. If you reward far too late the animal will not associate it with the behaviour, so will learn nothing. The longer the time lag, the slower the training process as the harder it is for the animal to understand. When training with rewards like treats, there is always a time lag between the animal doing what you want and you getting the treat into its mouth!

This is where the clicker comes in. The clicker is used to "mark" the behaviour - it can give you pretty much perfect timing, so the animal learns far more quickly. It's a bit like taking an instant photo of exactly what the animal was doing right.

Before you start training you need to "load" the clicker. This means you need to teach the cat that click=treat. To do this, have a supply of tiny treats to hand to give your cat. Treats in one hand, clicker in the other. Feed your cat the treats one at a time and at the eXACT moment you give the treat, you click. Repeat a few times, then start clicking immediately before giving the treat. You should soon notice that the cat will anticipate a treat every time it hears the click. Now you are ready to train.

To give you an illustration of how this works, this is how I trained my kittens to sit.

Have a treat in one hand, clicker in the other.

Hold the treat out to the cat.

As the cat moves its head toward the treat to take it, slowly move the treat back over its head (not too high otherwise the cat will stretch up). As the cat moves its head back to get towards the treat, its bum should go down.

At the exact moment the cats bum hits the floor, you click the clicker and give the treat.

Repeat a few times until the cat gets the idea that it is the action of sitting that causes the click and treat.

Once you get to this stage, start introducing the the cue, eg the verbal "sit".

Say "sit", lure the cat as before, and click and treat for success. Repeat a few times; verbal cue, lure, click and treat.

Start phasing out the cue, e.g. less obvious hand movements, so the cat learns to follow the verbal cue rather than the hand movement.

You will then get to the stage where the cat no longer needs the lure - it will sit for the verbal cue alone.

As you can see, the click doesn't replace the cue - it replaces verbal praise. Of course you can use praise as well (I always do) but the clicker is more effective.

Not only does it give precision timing; it is also very specific.
Look at it this way... If you wanted to use a verbal marker, eg "good girl", how does the cat know that this is meant to signify a reward? Personally, I talk to my cats all the time, and tell them they are good / handsome / lovely etc frequently. My "good boy" in training is meaningless to them. The click is a very specific noise, it ALWAYS means a treat is coming, and it NEVER happens without the treat. It is an obvious, unambiguous signal.

Finally - you don't keep using the clicker indefinitely - only to train the behaviour.
Once your kitten is reliable at a cue (eg the sit) you no longer need to click every time. Because the cat understands by now that sitting on cue gets a reward, you don't need the marker in the middle.

The thing to remember here is that once the behaviour is trained, you can continue to give rewards without the click - but please NEVER give the click and not the treat. If you do, the click loses all its value and becomes meaningless.

Sorry it was so long, but hope this makes sense and helps!

__________________
"For all its sham, drudgery and broken dreams it is still a beautiful world"

Hello!!
I thought I might add in terms of science in case you are interested, it's exactly as Colette said, but hopefully it might be useful to someone else too so I'll also explain the very basics.

Clicker training is a form of operant conditioning. The cat(or other animal, even humans) forms an association between a response (behaviour: sit, come, stay etc) and the stimulus (consequence: treat, attention etc).
What we're doing when training, is positive reinforcement. We are rewarding the response with the stimulus. In order for the cat to connect the positive reinforcement to the response, you have to reinforce EXACTLY as the response is occurring.
You would use a primary reinforcer, ie food.
But to shove a treat down the cats mouth exactly as it does the response isn't quite so easy. So what we will do is use a conditioned reinforcer, ie. the clicker! :-) When you use the primary and conditioned reinforcer together, the cat will soon realise the importance of the clicker which would otherwise just be insignificant to the cat, and not rewarding alone. The cat will know that click means we are happy with their behaviour. They will associate: Behaviour = Click = Treat

Operant conditioning can work the other way, without a clicker to get rid of unwanted behaviour by negative reinforcement. So we ignore the bad behaviour. My cat Poppy behaves like a terror at times, she loves getting into trouble and being the centre of attention. She would climb on top of my 9 foot high wardrobes and my bf was terrified she would fall as injure herself (she is his little princess and the first pet he's ever had). Despite telling him to ignore her, he used to scream at her to get down. She loved the attention so she would keep climbing up there again and again. But as soon as he started to ignore her, and she realised that there was no attention. She stopped going up there!
Miracles of science!

Thank you to both of you for the brilliant advice and explanation. It makes perfect sense now.

I will let you know how I get on.

Good luck!

__________________
"For all its sham, drudgery and broken dreams it is still a beautiful world"

Thanks!
Today I started with the click = reward with both of them. No other behaviour or command. As predicted, quite naturally Indie gave quiet attention whilst waiting for a reward and Jazz was all over the place. So, next session when I will wait for a behaviour I will just do it with Indie.

I won't discount Jazz. Maybe just wait for her to grow up more.

Hello. Maybe if you can, try working with Jazz alone. It can take a while, sometimes they can even be a bit lazy but once you keep going, Jazz will realise.
When Millie was a puppy, I had her and the older dog, Cyrus. whilst teaching the pup, the older one would come and do all the commands i was asking the pup and do all the ones he knew were coming and he would do all the extra he knew. i had to reward his excellent behaviour, he would sit, stay, down, shake paw, speak, roll over, die, go fetch a slipper all in one whirl. it was hilarious, but he was very distracting for Millie. She was very unfocused, distracted, confused, couldn't be bothered and looked like she wasn't getting it every time. I thought she was a lost cause and I was getting frustrated. But as soon as I started teaching her alone, she really excelled. Now if i ask them to sit and if they're really excited for a treat, they will sit, down and shake all at once (because they know my drill of what i might ask next) and race each other to get the treat first.
But even now, if i want to teach them a new trick, I teach them separately until they get to almost the same level. But there are somethings you might find one of your cats just won't get/won't want to get. With poppy & persie my cats and cyrus the pomeranian, I can ask "Pick you?" (as in, shall I pick you up?) and they will stand up onto my legs and stretch their arms out and then go floppy. Millie learnt this one by watching the others, but shes too huge to pick up!lol and Ruby my avatar, JUST won't get it. She just won't. And there are other things that will surprise you, that they will teach each other. Ruby knows "kiss" and she'll lick my lips (which not everyone loves but i do) and one day, I asked ruby for a kiss and Poppy kissed me! She learned from watching Ruby.
You could also use a special treat, one thats only used at clicker training to reinforce. Something they REALLY love. For my cats I use those dried salmon slivers. For the dogs, its a few kibbles of Royal Canin cat food. They love love love cat food, will do anything for it.
Good luck! Training can be so rewarding but patients and perseverance are the key!

Thanks for sharing that. Today I'll work with them individually and see how it goes