If you are anticipating training your dog you could look at using the ‘clicker training’ method, which has latterly become popular amongst dog trainers everywhere. In this method the trainer has to capitalize on a clicker, a tiny plastic box with a metal button which makes a distinctive click sound once the button is pressed. The  method is simple and  in several ways duplicates the positive training method. Here is how it works.

Decide on a certain behaviour which you would like to teach or reinforce your dog to do. A number of behaviours/actions come by nature to the dog like sitting, eating, standing, barking etc. and these need just to be rewarded so that your dog recognises when you want him to do what. Several other actions like acting dead, shaking hands, rolling over etc. do not come naturally to the dog and need to be instructed. Clicker training can be used to do both.

Clicker training works harmonising to the basic principles of operant conditioning, by linking the sound of the clicker with a food item which the dog especially likes. Now all you have to do is use the clicker to require the dog to do something, the dog, given that he relates the sound of the clicker with the food, immediately obliges and the training is accomplished.

Let us take an example to illustrate the process better, suppose you want to teach your dog to sit, you put a biscuit on your dog’s nose playfully and then move it upwards, the dog will obviously follow the movement of the biscuit with its nose and will then by nature rest its posterior on the floor, thereby placing himself in a sitting position. Now time your clicking to be so precise as to happen just as the dog seats himself, immediately give him the biscuit and praise him. Persist in doing this for sometime till the dog begins to connect the clicking with the food until the click causes him to  sit without you enticing him with treats. Now teach him another behaviour, but remember to attach the clicking cue only after the animal himself offers you the behaviour otherwise the clicking will not be associated to anything in the dog’s brain and he will be confused involving what it means.

Your dog is one smart little animal and it’s time you gave him deserved recognition for that. A number of trainers have been known to use negative reinforcement techniques beside the clicker method but this simply doesn’t work because punishment always creates a number of unwanted behaviours even if it serves the primary purpose of teaching the dog to not do something temporarily.

Any sort of training is a strenuous and strict process and needs time and patience. Though clicker training method has a high success rate it might not work for some types of dogs, if you see that it’s not working out for your pet you would be well advised to use another method to teach it tricks.

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