[nagdu] Clicker training, hot weather

[Julie J.]

Dan,

Yes, I use clicker from the very beginning.  My current dog was taught all 
of his obedience  and guiding concepts using the clicker.

The basic premise is that the "click" marks the exact moment that the dog 
has done what you want.  The reinforcer, usually food, comes after the 
click.  Typically shaping is used to guide the dog to the desired behavior. 
Shaping simply means that you click and treat, (c/t), for increasingly 
closer approximations of the behavior.

I taught Monty a paw touch this week.  I started by putting my hand palm up 
very close to his foot.  Any touch of his body to any part of my hand got a 
c/t.  Then I c/t for only any part of his leg.  then only his paw. Finally 
only the pad of his foot on the center of my hand.  Next I will move my hand 
to different places.   Each of those steps gets repeated a few times before 
moving on to the next step.  I try to c/t no more than 5 seconds apart when 
teaching a brand new concept.

Monty is an extremely fast learner and I tend to move pretty quickly with 
him.  a dog new to clicker will most likely need tasks broken down into 
smaller bits.  It sounds like it would take forever, but it doesn't really. 
I taught the paw touch in 2 to 3 minutes.

I will say that the first couple of weeks using clicker are slow.  Dogs new 
to clicker have to learn first that click means treat, which takes only a 
couple of minutes.  the second and more important thing they have to learn 
is that they can affect when they get a click by their actions.  Once the 
dog gets that concept your training time will decrease and comprehension 
will dramatically increase.

Clicker training is active learning.  the dog is actively trying to figure 
out what you want and how to get you to click.  Other training methods are 
passive meaning that the dog is being shown what to do.
There are lots of really good books and web sites on clicker training. 
BookShare has a lot.  NLS has a few, but you might have to request an 
interlibrary loan to get them.

I hope this explanation helps a bit.  this is the seriously abridged 
version. *smile*

Julie