Clicker training...

[proudag08]

Do it? Don't do it? What do you use it to teach? How effective is it? Can it be integrated with other tecniques? Positives? Negatives? Strengths? Weaknesses? Ad nauseum...

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand go!

[Winchey]

Pretty much teach everything I want a dog to do with PR, once they are proficient then I begin using force to polish. Don't use a clicker much other then when I am teaching a new concept. Imo it is the best way to teach a dog something, not that great at teaching a dog to not do something though.

[Sharon]

Do it? Don't do it? What do you use it to teach? How effective is it? Can it be integrated with other tecniques? Positives? Negatives? Strengths? Weaknesses? Ad nauseum...

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand go!

Google up "clicker training " and you'll find lots of opinion.
I use it for young pups and it's a great way to train. The best part is that the handler is not speaking. There isn't any "Sit,sit,sit,sit" The clicker does the job.

[hansreb3]

Clickers are called "bridges".

In operant conditioning theory, behaviors are broken down into Discriminative Stimuli (saying "sit" for example), Behavioral Response (dog sitting), and Reinforcement/Punishment. The "bridge" fits in to let the dog know, "that behavior was great" your reward in incoming. When training specific behaviors like obedience and tricks you want the reinforcement to come as soon as they engage in the correct behavior, but you can't always stuff a cookie in their mouth as they go to sit or if they are completing a 5 minute stay 20 ft away from you. The "bridge" lets them know that they behavior they were doing right at the "click" is the one that they are getting reinforced for.

Rather than using a clicker as a bridge, I use the word "good!". I didn't realize it was a bridge at all until I noticed that my dog stopped and ran over to me every time I said it. I thought I was encouraging further behavior, but I was really telling her "that was great, come get a reward."

I think clickers are good for close range, complex, behaviors. Its better for teaching them how to get a beer out of the fridge than a long range retrieve. You can turn any sound, however, into a bridge.

[DonF]

I have never been able to understand clicker training. I just can't imagine saying nothing to your dog but click the clicker. Doesn't the dog need to learn commands before the clicker will work? If your away from home and don't have your clicker with you, how do you get the dog to sit? If it's off about 300 yds and you want to reel it in, can it really hear the clicker out there? I can usually see someone's point on a training method other than what I do but this clicker really has me stumped!

[Winchey]

I think we have been over this. And no it is introduced before words or commands. Dog lays down you click, the click means he did something right and it is followed by a reward, dog comes to you click and reward. All the click is is a signifier that the dog did something right and a reward will follow, the theory being that behaviours that you want and reward become more frequent (this is shaping). You can say yes or good or whatever, it is the same thing, the clicker can just arguably be used more precisely than your voice and always produces the exact same sound. If you were teaching a dog to sit for example, you lure the dog into a sit position with a treat and as soon as his butt touches the ground you click, signifying the right behaviour at the precise moment he did the behaviour, then reward, once the dog becomes proficient in being lured into the position you then introduce the command. You can mark the behaviour faster then you can reward it so the click becomes a bridge between when the dog actually does what you want and the time it takes you to reward him. It becomes less important when the behaviour is known. For example it would be like saying good boy as soon as your dog sat then going over and patting his head, rather then the dog sitting and you trying to rush over to give him a pat and him standing up while you were on your way. It is more for teaching new things rather than proofing. Once the commands are known you know longer need to use a bridge, neither voice marker or clicker, you weed them off the treats or reward variably and the wanted respsonse to your command becomes habit.

The clicker doesn't mean come or sit so if you taught the dog to sit and come you tell it to sit and come when you don't have your clicker, just like you would if you had it.

[Sharon]

I have never been able to understand clicker training. I just can't imagine saying nothing to your dog but click the clicker. Doesn't the dog need to learn commands before the clicker will work? If your away from home and don't have your clicker with you, how do you get the dog to sit? If it's off about 300 yds and you want to reel it in, can it really hear the clicker out there? I can usually see someone's point on a training method other than what I do but this clicker really has me stumped!

Clicker training:
For fun, I taught my pup to bow when greeting folks.
Here's the steps in a nutshell.

Clicker training depends on successive approximations.
I said nothing but watched.
When the dog bent his head down - click - and a treat.
The dog keeps putting his head down. If he has decent brains.
I hold off on the treats/click and the dog confused puts his head to the floor, thinking that might please me. Click! treat.
when dog is sure of a bow , i transition to my hand movement so I can get a bow out in public when i have no clicker.

Do some reading on operant conditioning in Google . Here's the initial term for a Psych 20 University course

http://www.wagntrain.com/OC/

[AzDoggin]

Pups learn how to learn, and more importantly, learn that training is FUN. It's a no-pressure way to get them shaped on all kinds of behaviors at a very early age.

George Hickox has a few examples of CT on his video. (I don't use a clicker either. I use "yes" followed by the treat. Later when you start to phase out the treat, the word "yes" has become conditioned to communicate to pup that "you are doing great."

I honestly do not see a downside for using CT with a pup.

There are trainers who use this method to teach very complex behavioral chains well into the dog's adulthood - and do so successfully in schutzhund training and turn out some amazingly driven, happy, well-adjusted, and exceedingly well-behaved dogs (Google Ivan Balabanov and look at some of his videos working with his Belgian Malinois).

[Cajun Casey]

Do it?Yes Don't do it? What do you use it to teach? I don't use it to teach anything. I use it to capture and reinforce behaviors the dog does on his own. How effective is it? Very Can it be integrated with other tecniques?Yes Positives?Quick, easy, effective, fun. Negatives? None I've found. Strengths?No pressure. Weaknesses?A dog can get jaded and try novel misbehavior in an effort to refresh the training chain. Ad nauseum...

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand go!

[hansreb3]

I have never been able to understand clicker training. I just can't imagine saying nothing to your dog but click the clicker. Doesn't the dog need to learn commands before the clicker will work? If your away from home and don't have your clicker with you, how do you get the dog to sit? If it's off about 300 yds and you want to reel it in, can it really hear the clicker out there? I can usually see someone's point on a training method other than what I do but this clicker really has me stumped!

This is actually a great set of questions; in my opinion. Learning the answers will make anyone a better trainer.

"Doesn't the dog need to learn commands before the clicker will work?"

Dogs don't actually need to know any verbal/hand signal commands to be trained, and I challenge you to try this at home. There's no clicker in this example but you could certainly use one to do the exact same thing. Just click...then toss a treat.

Example: My room mate's girlfriend's dog is a pound puppy and had trouble settling down in the living room. She would bark commands at the dog and eventually trap him under her feet and chew him out if he moved. This was noisy, labor intensive, and annoyed the heck out of me. Extra noise in the house always bothers me. Anywho, I decided to work on this while she was off doing something else. I put one of our dog blankets by the window, got a bunch of treats, and sat in my recliner. I trained the dog to lay on the blanket without ever saying a word to it. He naturally liked to walk around the living room, so I tossed him a treat whenever he walked near the blanket. No "'good boy"- no nothing. Just toss the treat. He started to learn that the only way to get me to toss a treat was to walk by the blanket. Once he did that consistently; I made the game harder. Now, he only got treats for stepping on the blanket. Once he got that down I only tossed treats when all four paws were on the blanket. Once he had that down I had to be a little patient and wait for him to sit on the blanket, put his head down, or anything that resembled a sitting or laying motion. After about 20 minutes he was happy to lay on the blanket. Once his owner got home he was laying on the blanket like a champ. When she settled down she added a command every time he laid down on his own. "go lay down".

I find that is much easier to get the dog to engage in the behavior on its own, and add the word later. Every time you say the command it must be followed by a response by the dog and a reward/punishment. Otherwise, you are training your dog that the word doesn't mean anything or that they only have to listen the third time you say it.

So long story short, the clicker isn't to cue for the dog to engage in behavior. The clicker is a tool to "mark" good behaviors that you want the dog to repeat more often. When you reward the dog for a behavior you are increasing the probability that it will engage in that behavior again- no commands/cues required. Those come later.

[Sharon]

Well said. Welcome.

[4dabirds]

I think a lot of people clicker train dogs and miss one of the most important aspects of the technique . "Target training" Target training is similar to the rewarding a behavior that the dog exhibits in the lay down on the blanket example. This is only part of the technique. Using target training enables the trainer to not only reward wanted behaviors but allows a mechanism to communicate to the dog that certain behaviors although they are desirable are not the behaviors the trainer wants the dog to exhibit at the moment. When training new behaviors the dog is learning at this time and correction is not viable and will confuse the dog and make the dog apprehensive. The clicker being a positive notifier should be followed in training with a negative notifier for correction as well as a neutral notifier for unwanted behaviors to keep continuity in the training program. I never use no as a notifier unless I am going to correct the dog, I will not correct the dog unless it knows the command. So this brings us to how to implement target training. First the dog should be preloaded , that is it should have been given treats after hearing the clicker to make the association that the sound of the clicker means that a treat is coming. This can be done by feeding the dog its kibble at dinner time one piece at a time Click-treat Click-treat. As with any training motivation for training is of utmost importance a hungry dog will never get bored in a training session as long as the treats keep coming. It may be necessary to skip a meal to keep the dog highly motivated. I use hot dogs cut into small pieces the dog is more motivated for them and they are very cheap relative to commercial dog treats. I cut one hot dog into about 30 pieces. In a room or other confined area where the dog can not venture far from me I hold a target in my hand, I use a water bottle for a target . When the dog comes near me I will wave the bottle very slightly to get the dog to sniff the bottle. This is the only time I prompt the dog, the idea here is to get the dog to offer behaviors on its own. The dog will eventually sniff the bottle, when he does I click and treat him. You will see that this leads the dog to come back to the bottle over and over again for the treat. Once the dog is doing this I put the bottle on the floor. I do not prompt the dog I just stand there waiting for the dog to sniff or touch the bottle. When the dog sniffs the bottle I click and treat the dog . This will lead to the dog touching the bottle over and over again for the treats. After this bench mark I add another bottle on the floor a few feet apart from the first one. Now when the dog touches the first bottle i say wrong or eh-eh. The dog will eventually go to the second bottle and get clicked and treated. This lesson has taught the dog that he needs to problem solve to get the reward. You can shape this behavior into mutiple behaviors with the bottles such as touching both in sequence for the reward. When you have reached this benchmark of establishing a neutral notifier for a behavior you do not want you simply treat the dog for any behavior the dog offers such as sitting down or laying down scratching his ear or whatever. The result of all of this is you now have a dog that comes to a training session looking to offer you a behavior as opposed to a dog that needs to be compelled to perform. This positive motivation is very powerful and caries on to all training you will work on. It allows you to avoid correcting a dog that is not fully understanding a command and communicate that what the dog is doing at that moment is not what you want. Furthermore dogs that are clicker trained have been shown to retain understanding of commands for longer periods of time with less work. Some people claim this has no merit when training on birds but a dog that has been trained in this method understands that when you click him on his point that steady is what you want and the bird following is the reward. It can be used in stacking the dog that the tail steady and the head held high is a rewardable behavior. It can be used to remove behaviors such as flagging by creating a command that whoa includes the tail being steady and rewarding with a bird after clicking. It builds confidence in the dog because the dog understands exactly what behaviors get the reward.Clickers enable you to have better timing and one other thing about clickers is there is never the change in tone that will happen with your voice which is enough to confuse the dog. Remember the dog does not understand what the word is so a change in the tone makes it different for the dog. The clicker is the notifier and should always be followed by reward and praise.

[mountaindogs]

I start whoa with it, among other things. Then transfer to the e-collar when I know they will stop around distractions and hold while I walk around and away...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=pl ... moGWFSaqGs

I also find it works great with positional stuff like returning to heel. This is a puppy LEARNING to heel...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_X_DDOY ... r_embedded

Upsides....
Easy
Fun for both of us dog and human
gives you tools to teach stuff you never thought you could.
Helps teach very detailed minute things like moving one foot, or holding up tail etc...
The more I learn the more I LOVE it
Allows you to start obedience earlier, as it is motivational and not involving pressure.
Makes everything a game, to your dog.

Downsides...
It is tough to hold attention with it outdoors, with the gun dogs.
It is SOOOOO tempting for the kids, and when they pick it up and click it, the dogs all come running to the kitchen for treats :roll:
It helps to have a food motivated dog. Not as effective with play rewards only, but still works.

[4dabirds]

Motivation is relative to desire . If the dog is hungry which you can create by skipping a meal or two you will have the dogs full attention inside or out will not matter. Never create a cue with the food keep it in a pouch on your side and only reach for it when the dog is successful .

[EvanG]

Do it? Don't do it? What do you use it to teach? How effective is it? Can it be integrated with other tecniques? Positives? Negatives? Strengths? Weaknesses? Ad nauseum...

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand go!

"Clicker training" is a misnomer. Even clicker teaching isn't quite accurate. The click is a marker. It isn't a reward, nor is it force or pressure. Just a marker. It can be used to increase a behavior or to make it more likely to occur. That's just fine for puppies. But, sooner or later you're going to have to actually train the dog if you want a reliable set of skills you can count on in fieldwork.

Operant conditioning is a good pathway of early teaching & conditioning for pups, and I encourage that. I use a treat reward system, rather than using clickers, but to each his/her own on that. But, just as we grown and mature, so do dogs, and that means our needs change to demand greater things. Teaching alone isn't enough for a dog working in the demanding elements of a hunt. Distractions are everywhere.

I regard training as a three-phased process: Teach, Force, Reinforce. Lacking any of those elements, a dog is exponentially more prone to unreliability in the field.

EvanG

[DonF]

Think I got it. When you see the pup starting to sit, you lure him to do it, as he does it you click and give a treat? I teach my dogs to sit by saying "sit" softly as they are being set up, they get a treat. The problem as I see it is that after you've gone thru all this and have the dog sitting, you still haven't taught a command. If you use the clicker for sit, here and down, when you click the clicker how does the dog know which action to take? Correct me if I'm wrong but, aren't you going to do away with the clicker after the function is learned any way?

[Winchey]

The dog wouldn't have to decide on any action to take if you clicked the clicker because the click just notified he is doing the right thing. And yes once the command is known then you would no longer need the clicker or the bridge, but it can help while they are still learning. We all know that dogs need to be rewarded or disciplined very quickly or there is no point in rewarding or disciplining, with the bridge of a click or a yes or whatever it increases this time frame where reward or discipline is beneficial and speeds training along.

One of the theories is that a dog that is aloud to learn on his own without being forced is better off. By shaping behaviours the dog is doing the things that you want because he wants to, so he does them happily and readily because he gets rewarded. This is not to say that you can't transition to making the dog do it because you said so afterwards, but it takes less time doing this as well because the dog already knows what you want.

[Sharon]

Think I got it. When you see the pup starting to sit, you lure him to do it, as he does it you click and give a treat? I teach my dogs to sit by saying "sit" softly as they are being set up, they get a treat. The problem as I see it is that after you've gone thru all this and have the dog sitting, you still haven't taught a command. If you use the clicker for sit, here and down, when you click the clicker how does the dog know which action to take? Correct me if I'm wrong but, aren't you going to do away with the clicker after the function is learned any way?

Eventually you transition the click to a word and yes you do away with the clicker after the skill is learned usually. My friend prepares standard poodles to be a partner with the blind. They use the clicker longer as the dog is always right by their side.

[AzDoggin]

One of the theories is that a dog that is aloud to learn on his own without being forced is better off. By shaping behaviours the dog is doing the things that you want because he wants to, so he does them happily and readily because he gets rewarded..

You bet. This applies to the dog hunting as well ... lots and lots of exposure to wild birds and very little "interference" by the owner leads to a happy, motivated, intelligent dog. Drinking in the smell of birds and getting to see them fly off is the reward in this case. The birds are the "clicker trainers."

[northern cajun]

Clickers are called "bridges".

In operant conditioning theory, behaviors are broken down into Discriminative Stimuli (saying "sit" for example), Behavioral Response (dog sitting), and Reinforcement/Punishment. The "bridge" fits in to let the dog know, "that behavior was great" your reward in incoming. When training specific behaviors like obedience and tricks you want the reinforcement to come as soon as they engage in the correct behavior, but you can't always stuff a cookie in their mouth as they go to sit or if they are completing a 5 minute stay 20 ft away from you. The "bridge" lets them know that they behavior they were doing right at the "click" is the one that they are getting reinforced for.

Rather than using a clicker as a bridge, I use the word "good!". I didn't realize it was a bridge at all until I noticed that my dog stopped and ran over to me every time I said it. I thought I was encouraging further behavior, but I was really telling her "that was great, come get a reward."

I think clickers are good for close range, complex, behaviors. Its better for teaching them how to get a beer out of the fridge than a long range retrieve. You can turn any sound, however, into a bridge.

I agree that a word can be used for a bridge. In fact women are better at it on average than men but the clicker has one thing going for it. The sound is the exact same it cannot really be modulated. A voice however can. I can say good a multitude of ways in which a dog can interpet in differing ways as in kinda good, really good, barely good etc. The clicker is just one sound.

I am not saying that using a word doesnt work but its impact on that part of a dogs brain is IMHO slightly different.

[EvanG]

I've noted at my seminars that women are quite a bit better at praising their dogs than men as well. That is especially true of genuine, enthusiastic praise. Macho thing I guess! :roll:

EvanG

[birddog1968]

An Attaboy or Attagirl and a energetic rub of the head is a powerful thing.

[mountaindogs]

An anthroplogy professor of mine said that a whistle/bell/click sound that marks a behavior that is not used for anything else is more quickly prossessed by the brain and in a different and more primitive area than a verbal word, which goes through the "communication" or language portion of the brain.

[Sharon]

Now isn't that interesting. Any idea where i could read that?

[Chukar12]

Karen Pryor

Research in neurophysiology has identified the kinds of stimuli—bright lights, sudden sharp sounds—that reach the amygdala first, before reaching the cortex or thinking part of the brain. The click is that kind of stimulus. Other research, on conditioned fear responses in humans, shows that these also are established via the amygdala, and are characterized by a pattern of very rapid learning, often on a single trial, long-term retention, and a big surge of concommitant emotions. The New York Times Sunday Magazine ran a cover story surveying this research in 1999.

http://www.clickertraining.com/node/72

[Sharon]

Thank you

[snips]

I've noted at my seminars that women are quite a bit better at praising their dogs than men as well. That is especially true of genuine, enthusiastic praise. Macho thing I guess! :roll:

EvanG

Agree...

[Retiredbirddogman]

Your just an ol' softy Brenda. )