Originally Posted by lemmsy

hello- clicker training is suuuuuuppppppeeeeerrrrr positive!

Have you clicker trained before?

I'll try to give you a brief outline.

Ok so basically. It is very much like standard positive reinforcement when you give your dog a treat for good behaviour but with clicker training you introduce a "marker" (the clicker) to mark the behaviour that you are teaching. You do this using a clicker- which looks like this



So for instance if I were training a dog to walk with a slack lead- I would walk down the road with a treat bag full of sausage or simular high value treats and my clicker. As soon as the lead went slack even for a second I would click and treat the dog, repeating and repeating this. Soon the dog gets the message that when the lead is slack they get a treat and so they re-offer the behaviour. Once you've got your dog with a slack lea you can then move it into having the dog on your left side in a close heel. Again you only click and treat when the dog is in the correct positive and repetition of this soon means that the dog learns to walk to heel.

I don't know if I've explained that well- so here is an article that explains the idea of clicker training:
What Is Clicker Training? | Karen Pryor Clickertraining

Here is a video that also explains the basics:

YouTube - An Introduction to Clicker Training

and a video with some stuff that can be taught by clicker training- although tbh the sky's the limit:
YouTube - Dog Clicker Training Demo

and a video on clicker training to heel:
YouTube - Clicker training a heel with a 10 week old American Bulldog

I trained my border collie from a pup and it seems to work really and we now apply it to agility and obedience training

Best of luck and shout if you need help

Originally Posted by Trevs_mum

Thanks for you responses, I think this will be perfect for Trev's, as he is a greedy little thing, so will love the treats, I've just ordered the Karen Pryror book.
Following on from this, my other dog is deaf, so I'm wondering if theres any good training methods/books for her? She is already very well behaved and knows a few basic hand signals, and will walk at my side, just like I said, to keep her mind active it might be nice for her to learn some new stuff!

Thanks again for your advice

xxx

Originally Posted by Colliepoodle

Well, once you've got the hang of the theory of clicker training, you could move on and use it for your deaf dog - only substituting say, a flash of light for the click

Originally Posted by HighlandQuine

Sorry to jump in and hijack this thread but I was wondering, do you think I might be able to use clicker training with my almost 7 month old boy who will not stop chasing the cats? Like using the clicker when he doesn't chase them or have I totally got the wrong end of the stick here? Things are pretty bad with the boy and the cats so I just wondered if it would be something to try with him?

Any thoughts would be welcome.