# Books...



## StdPooDad (Mar 16, 2012)

It's not an exaggeration to say that after reading this book, Teaching the Dog to Think: My Year of Dog Agility Training with My Collie, Willow,, that my training changed totally. 

I read a few examples and tried them, then realized how *powerful* clicker training is! Please don't do what I did and confuse clicker training with "training with a clicker" "Training with a clicker" just means you use a clicker and treats to mark the finished behavior. 
"clicker training" means that in most cases you use shaping to get the dog to figure out the behavior themselves. 

A book I'm reading now is called The Thinking Dog: Crossover to Clicker Training VERY good book!


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## Maxy24 (Mar 5, 2011)

It's very true, many people don't really understand what clicker training can be. They just think of it as an extra thing you must do before giving the treat, an inconvenience. Once you start reading about shaping and once you start more complex behaviors or start working from a distance the benefits of clicker (or marker) training are amazing. Shaping is so cool to see, watching their brains work. But it can be frustrating until the dog becomes clicker savvy, dogs need to learn how to think and offer behaviors before they become really proficient at shaping.


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## Deaf Dogs (Apr 10, 2012)

The best clicker training book I've come across is "Reaching the Animal Mind" by Karen Pryor. I am a clicker trainer too. I use almost no luring when training I train almost totally with shaping and free shaping.


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## StdPooDad (Mar 16, 2012)

I have 2 dogs...Seamus is a bit over 5, Teaghan just over 2. I primarily used luring with Seamus. When I take out the clicker with him, he just sits there and looks at me. 

I just started Teaghan on clicker training, she is young enough and so "wiggly" that, intended or not, there are lots of things to click with her to get started. I have no intention of doing any other kind of training with Teaghan. I won't say I will *never* lure, but most likely not. 

An example of how strong clicker training with her is "down". After 2 years of luring, the best she could do was a half a&*ed down, but I had to stoop down with a treat. However, after reading a part in one of the books I mentioned about teaching "down" with a clicker, I decided to shape her for it. After 2 session, one 3 minutes and one 2 minutes, she was consistently dropping "down"

I've started shaping her for a dogwalk in agility. I have a rubber covered piece of shelving that I pull out, put on the living room floor. We've only spent maybe a few minutes on it, but already she's getting it. 

Before i started shaping, I knew it was powerful, but never having done it, I didn't realize how *fast* it can be! (that is, if your dog offers behaviors, lol )



Maxy24 said:


> But it can be frustrating until the dog becomes clicker savvy, dogs need to learn how to think and offer behaviors before they become really proficient at shaping.


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## bridget246 (Oct 26, 2011)

When clicker training do you need to have a clicker with you in order for the training to work?


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## StdPooDad (Mar 16, 2012)

Only when training, but once you have the behavior it's just like anything else. If you want to train, but don't have a clicker handy, you can use a marker word like "yes"
Make it a short, unemotional word. Don't go over the top...it's better to say "yes" than "yeeeessss, my sweet baby", etc...

Another term for clicker training is marker training. A clicker just happens to be a good way to mark the exact behavior that you want. 

Basically, it goes like this.

1. Wait for the dog to do *something*
2. Raise your expectations
3. Look for the total behavior
4. Add a cue once your dog has at least a 90% success rate. 

I'll just tell you how Teaghan's down training went. 
1. I clicked and treated her( I'll just call this c/t) for *any* movement toward the floor. If she looked down, c/t. If she bent her leg...c/t, you get the idea. 
2. I only c/t'd her when she bent her legs and sort of laid down
3. When she dropped into a down, I clicked and jackpotted. Gave her a bunch of treats. 
4. *Before* she went down, I would say "down" and use a hand signal.

NOTE: The TOTAL time for this was 5 minutes!

I"m thinking you're asking though, if you *always* need a clicker. The short answer, No. 
Deaf Dogs can answer this better than me, I just started clicker training.



bridget246 said:


> When clicker training do you need to have a clicker with you in order for the training to work?


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## bridget246 (Oct 26, 2011)

StdPooDad said:


> Only when training, but once you have the behavior it's just like anything else. If you want to train, but don't have a clicker handy, you can use a marker word like "yes"
> Make it a short, unemotional word. Don't go over the top...it's better to say "yes" than "yeeeessss, my sweet baby", etc...
> 
> I"m thinking you're asking though, if you *always* need a clicker. The short answer, No.
> Deaf Dogs can answer this better than me, I just started clicker training.


I haven't been stuck on anything for long with Bridget's training. She actually picks up most stuff pretty quickly. Carlos isn't quite as quick but he still getting use to the place and is picking up quickly for being new. I don't set aside time with training as much as I use to. Now if I walk by the dog I will give them a few commands and praise them for doing it. The dogs never know when the training is going to start as I don't give them any warnings and sometimes treats will be flying through the air for them and other times it doesn't. 

This clicker thing still has me interested. I took a lot from toy training, treat training and praise training. But here is what is getting me. Since I'm trying to do more from a distance I'm finding it hard to reward them as they go through the motions. I want to setup a little dog show this fall so I'm trying to prep the dogs for it. This however requires me not to be near the dogs as they go through the different acts. Of course this isn't obedience training so nothing at all happens if the dog doesn't want to do it as I'm trying to find things for them to do that they actually want to do and do naturally. 

I seen Deaf Dog videos so maybe she will chime in with some tips to get started on this. I have a clicker that came with a video that was doing the same thing I was doing with the my key word of yes. I have no idea how I can be unemotional when I spent the last 5 minutes looking for a down from Carlos and he finally does it. I couldn't hide the excitement out of my voice if you paid me.


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## StdPooDad (Mar 16, 2012)

Answers interspersed in red. I'm really not the be all, end all of clicker trainers. It's still new to me. 



bridget246 said:


> . I don't set aside time with training as much as I use to.
> That's the cool thing about clicker training. It takes so *little* time! 2 minutes here, 3 minutes there...
> 
> 
> ...


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## StdPooDad (Mar 16, 2012)

I'm interested in watching and reading more about it. Where did you find the videos?



bridget246 said:


> I seen Deaf Dog videos


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## StdPooDad (Mar 16, 2012)

Here's a good video. Teaching a dog to Reverse / Back up using Clicker Training (by Honey the Great Dane) - YouTube

At the first when it says "charging the clicker", that just means that the dog associates the sound of the clicker with treats. 
Some do this by doing a really simple behavior, like "sit", clicking and treating for every time they do it, like 30 times. 
Another way is just to sit in a chair...click-feed, click-feed, etc...

Ultimately, to paraphrase Yoda. "There is no try, only do!" Don't say, gee, I'll try this clicker training stuff. Just do it!



bridget246 said:


> some tips to get started on this.


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## bridget246 (Oct 26, 2011)

StdPooDad said:


> I'm interested in watching and reading more about it. Where did you find the videos?


http://dogfoodchat.com/forum/general-dog-discussion/15070-deaf-dogs-just-good-any-hearing-dog.html

The videos.


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## Maxy24 (Mar 5, 2011)

clicker training is ideal for distance work. You can mark the correct behavior with the clicker from a distance and then toss or walk and deliver the reward. Clicker training often helps the dog learn quicker because the dog is not blindly following a treat. For some dogs when they are being lured they are not paying attention to what they are doing, they are just focusing on keeping their nose on that treat, but that's it, they don't know what the rest of them is doing until you start fading the lure a bit. When you take a lure out of the equation and just say "do something" they must start really thinking about their behavior and what every part of them is doing otherwise they won't get their reward. So usually once the dog gets the behavior they are golden, they won't forget it the next session. There is no lure to fade either and the dog doesn't become dependent on you prompting him (pointing, encouraging, etc.), he just experiments until he gets the behavior and then repeats it. once he's repeating reliably you add in the verbal.

And yes, once the dog KNOWS a command there is no need for the clicker anymore. The clicker is for teaching, it tells the dog "That was right!". Once the dog knows the command no one needs to tell him whether he got it right or not, he knows he got it right.

Here's a facebook page you might check out, it hasn't been very active lately, I'm going to post a video of my dog's first perch work session and maybe that will get things rolling on there again. But there are a lot of clicker videos posted already.
http://www.facebook.com/groups/344528645567134/


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## Deaf Dogs (Apr 10, 2012)

OK I've typed a response twice, but keep losing it, and I'm busy watching the hockey game, so I'm going to have to do it later... sorry. I'll reply properly later tonight


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