how to teach tricks

[mburtis]

Ok so im going to try to start teaching all the classic dog tricks just for fun and showing off to our 6month bc/mcnab mix. Stuff like shake, take a bow, etc. ive been working on shake a little just by telling him to sit then giving him the shake command a few times then physically picking his foot up into the position (worked great with sitting) and then treating. since this really isnt anything a dog would normally do im kinda curious if there is any better way to show him what it means. Any advice is appreciated.

[Ms.DaisyDuke]

I clicker train for most of this stuff. For shake, with the dog in a sit, I held a treat in a closed fist about chest hight on the dog ( I was either sitting on the floor or squatting) and wait for them to paw at the fist. click and treat. With repetition the dog will get faster and faster at offering his paw, then I remove the treat from my hand and just use an open palm, when the dog paws at the open palm, click and treat. Once the dog is offering the paw into an open palm reliably, I start using the command word. For "high five", I just turned up open palm to it facing the dog and rewarded for paw connecting with the open palm. "Take a bow" is till a work in progress for both of my dogs, I'm afraid I'm not doing something right there! If you go to your local books store, I think there might be a small collection of books on trick training... those are always fun. I have also taken a "tricks n' games" class with my oldest dog, that was a blast!

[ejano]

Clicker is great! There's many videos on U-tube that demonstrate training a dog....I just watched one of a BC stacking a donut ring (child's toy)....I think that's going to be Robin's next trick. .

 

 

Liz

[in2adventure]

Definately clicker train There are lots of DVD's and books on this. And don't "name" the trick or command until the dog has a full understnding of what he/she is doing. If you name it too early, they may associate the word with a behavior you don't want.

[Lokisaab]

Clicker is great! There's many videos on U-tube that demonstrate training a dog....I just watched one of a BC stacking a donut ring (child's toy)....I think that's going to be Robin's next trick. .

Liz

 

 

Did it look like this:

 

because that's my dog, JC. He was just learning that when I posted it. He's better now!

 

 

I have a list of 100 tricks that I intend to each my dogs. We cross them off as we learn them. I use a clicker but I believe in shaping behavior rather then luring or physically making them do something. Shaping really makes their minds work and forces them to think.

[njnovice]

Am I the only person who has a dog who is freaked out by the sound of a clicker? Mick has thunderstorm phobia, but no other noises really freak him out, including gun shots, fireworks or explosions (live close to both a quarry and a small military base).

 

He runs from the clicker.

[alligande]

Am I the only person who has a dog who is freaked out by the sound of a clicker? Mick has thunderstorm phobia, but no other noises really freak him out, including gun shots, fireworks or explosions (live close to both a quarry and a small military base).

 

He runs from the clicker.

I have one of those too, Brody is not noise sensitive except to clicker noises, this includes everything from a ball point pen to our swinging kitchen door, that makes a very loud click type noise. I have trained using "yes" as a replacement I don't think it is close to being as effective, but it is what we have got. With my young man Rievaulx I am using my voice to click, which is much better, I just don't want to use a clicker and torture my already neurotic friend if he is in hearing range, it is already bad that I am working with his brother.

[coyotecreek]

There is a book called 101 dog tricks and its by Kyra Sundance, with her Weim. Chalcy.

 

This is a great book and I learned alot..but I also learned, when teaching tricks, that each dog is an individual..what works for one, wont work for another all the time. I couldnt get Kate to shake paws for the longest time..she was even deemed as "to polite" by a local dog trainer! One day, she put her foot up on my lap..took the oppurtunity to praise and make a fuss..she put her paw back down, thought for a minute and then did it again..now she shakes, both paws depending on which one I want, gives high fives and and double high fives..so much for a dog who would never shake paws! LOL

 

Our next hurdle is jumping over my leg, evetually my knee and evetually my back or arms..shes apprehensive, but I know she'll get it..just like with the shaking paws.

[Lewis Moon]

I've been resisting using the clicker because I really didn't want to be tied to another piece of "required" gear when training. Can someone tell me how/why the clicker is different/better than a verbal cue? Both are auditory...one just doest require that you buy and carry something.

[Guest echoica]

"Take a bow" is till a work in progress for both of my dogs, I'm afraid I'm not doing something right there!

 

take a bow is flippin' hard to teach. i have 2 tricks books that give it an easier rating, but the methods never worked for me (eg. physical manipulation & luring)! casey has a solid bow - i just labelled his stretches 'take a bow' every time i caught him doing it and gave him some really happy praise...and he actually learned bow from it!!

 

There is a book called 101 dog tricks and its by Kyra Sundance, with her Weim. Chalcy.

 

That's my favorite tricks book so far!

 

I've been resisting using the clicker because I really didn't want to be tied to another piece of "required" gear when training. Can someone tell me how/why the clicker is different/better than a verbal cue? Both are auditory...one just doest require that you buy and carry something.

 

There was an actual study done that showed clicker training reduces the amount of repetitions required to learn a trick (cut by 1/3). The idea is that dogs process the sound better than human language...so they take to a properly loaded clicker more readily for marking correct behaviour. I use both a clicker and 'yes' as markers. This way you don't have to carry a clicker all the time. Use the clicker at home and take it with you when you really want to get something solid quick with distractions. You really don't have to carry it around when you are not having a planned training activity.

[Root Beer]

I've been resisting using the clicker because I really didn't want to be tied to another piece of "required" gear when training. Can someone tell me how/why the clicker is different/better than a verbal cue? Both are auditory...one just doest require that you buy and carry something.

 

The click is not a cue. It does not indicate to your dog that he or she is to do something.

 

A cue would be something like "sit", "down", "here", "bark", "paw", etc.

 

The click is something altogether different. It gives the dog a different kind of information.

 

The click is paired with something that the dog really wants - usually a food treat, sometimes a toy, sometimes something else. The dog learns that the sound of the click indicates that he or she will receive that something. Once the dog learns that, the dog learns that choices that he or she chooses to make cause the click to happen. So, if you say "sit" and click as the dog's rump hits the floor, the dog learns that the click means something like "That's Correct!"

 

The real advantage of the click, though, comes through a type of training called "shaping". When shaping, the dog is actually the one responsible for figuring out the behavior that will be clicked. Just this morning, I was working with Dean on an exercise where he is learning to knock over a stack of objects. I never told him to knock it over. I simply stacked them and then brought him into the room. He saw it and was interested. As he started to walk over to check it out, I clicked and gave him a treat. That indicated that I want him to interact with that stack. Then he walked over and sniffed at it. Click/Treat. More interaction will get the click. Next he bumped right into it and it came tumbling down (it's a small stack right now), click and jackpot (which means several treats one after the other). That told him that the object of this game is to knock the stack down. Now I will use the clicker to show him that faster, more enthusiastic crashes into that pile will earn the click. Then the pile will be moved to a harder floor. Then the pile will grow. Then the pile will start to include small pieces of wood and PVC.

 

What the heck am I doing? I'm actually teaching him that certain types of noise are a good thing. I not only want him to be able to tolerate it, but I am teaching him to want to hear those noises by teaching him to love to make them happen.

 

That's one thing that the click can do. If I had brought him into the room and lured him into the pile, he would have avoided it from that point forward. His choice to knock it over on his own was key in starting this process.

 

I like using the clicker because it gives the dog a great deal of responsibility for the learning process. Learning is not something that is happening to him because I say so, but it is something that we are doing together in a give and take partnership. The dog can bring ideas to the table and sometimes they are actually better than my own. (That is not to say that clicker training is the only type of training where this happens - I am commenting only on clicker training, not on any other type of training, reinforcement based or otherwise).

 

That does not mean that I will never give cues. And it does not mean that I will have to carry a clicker and treats forever.

 

The clicker is a tool that is used to teach something. Once the dog has learned, the behavior is put on cue (so, cues are absolutely used in clicker training!), and rewards are delivered without the click.

 

If I were to call Dean, ask him to sit, and give me his paw, he would do so. I might say, "good boy!" and then we would go on with life. You would not be able to tell - if you happened to be watching - that I had used a clicker to train all of that. I would not need a clicker or treats to get him to do any of it. The learning has taken place and he now knows those things. But when I started, I used the clicker.

 

I hope that clarifies things for you. Before I got started using the clicker, I really didn't understand how it worked or what was good about it, but now I find it too valuable not to use. I don't use it to train every single thing, but at some point, with most things, I use it for something.

 

It might be worth looking into if you are interested in learning how it works.

[Root Beer]

Am I the only person who has a dog who is freaked out by the sound of a clicker?

 

No, it happens. There are things that you can do to try to help the dog understand that it's a good sound, but there are some that never really take to it.

 

My oldest has never really learned to love it. He understands what it means and I can use a very soft clicker with him when I really want to do some shaping or something with him. The sound is not aversive to him, but he doesn't love it.

 

Most dogs that I've worked with that start out afraid of the clicker have been turned around on the subject! But some never get there.

[Lewis Moon]

The click is not a cue. It does not indicate to your dog that he or she is to do something.

 

....rest removed for space and bandwidth....

 

 

Thanks! That really clears things up. My wife will probably shudder at my generalization (she's a psych prof) but that almost sounds positively Pavlovian....

I always say "Good Boy!" when Cerb gets something right, and often (mostly) he gets a treat along with it. That way the verbal reward is associated with the treat, is a reward in itself and can be used at a distance....not all behaviors that you want to reinforce happen next to your leg. I'm still unsure how the clicker differs from the "good boy", except possibly the clicker has no other analog/context, etc and is more "precise" because it is separate from the voice which is used for a myriad of other things.

[JohnLloydJones]

I'm still unsure how the clicker differs from the "good boy", except possibly the clicker has no other analog/context, etc and is more "precise" because it is separate from the voice which is used for a myriad of other things.

 

A "click" is processed through a faster, more primitive, brain pathway, so it is capable of being used more precisely. That said, I find my dogs read my body language faster and better that listening to a clicker*. It doesn't really matter what you use to "Mark" correct behaviour as long as it works for you and your dog.

 

Note*: That may just be that I haven't mastered the use of the clicker, of course.

[Root Beer]

Thanks! That really clears things up. My wife will probably shudder at my generalization (she's a psych prof) but that almost sounds positively Pavlovian....

 

The initial association between the click and treat is classical conditioning. The way that you start clicker training is to click, give a treat. Click, give a treat. Click, give a treat. Without that, the click means nothing to the dog. Once you have done that a good many times (with Border Collies it usually happens pretty fast), the dog knows that a treat is coming every time he or she hears the click.

 

Some clicker trainers don't treat (or reward otherwise) every single time they click, but I do. I see it as a contract between my dog and me. That sound (if it is made by the clicker that I have on me) means a treat will come. There might be a bit of delay (as I return to the dog after clicking a distance sit-stay, or if we move to a bowl of treats together, etc.), but it will come.

 

I used to use the softer i-clickers a lot until my mutt, Maddie, figured out that when the clicker was in my pocket, she could bop it with her nose to make it click and get a free treat. I went back to the box clickers after that! I appreciate her ingenuity, though. Just the other day I had an i-click in my pocket because I was using it with a student. I got Maddie out to do a demo and she bopped it with her nose. I hadn't had an i-click in my pocket around her in over a year - maybe two! She got her free treat, though, because that's the agreement that we have. And I was impressed that she remembered after all that time!

 

That's the kind of understand of the meaning of the click that makes it an effective tool.

 

I always say "Good Boy!" when Cerb gets something right, and often (mostly) he gets a treat along with it. That way the verbal reward is associated with the treat, is a reward in itself and can be used at a distance....not all behaviors that you want to reinforce happen next to your leg. I'm still unsure how the clicker differs from the "good boy", except possibly the clicker has no other analog/context, etc and is more "precise" because it is separate from the voice which is used for a myriad of other things.

 

It is far more precise. I started teaching Speedy to do a marching step with his front paws at one time. I clicked the exact instant when one paw hit the floor and the other started to lift, even a smidge. "Good Boy" would not have worked to mark that tiny, fast, yet key piece of the behavior. By the time "boy" got out of my mouth, the behavior would have been long over and done with and he would have had both paws on the ground, which is not what I wanted to mark. With the clicker he learned after several reps that it was actually the switch from one paw to the other that got the click.

 

Granted, that kind of precision might not be needed when teaching pet tricks for fun. But working with the clicker - especially shaping games, is very fun in and of itself. Both for the handler and the dog.

 

When teaching highly precise tricks and moves that require a deeper understanding on the dog's part, like the switch from one paw to the other, the clicker just makes it happen a heck of a lot faster, and I've found that it helps the concept "stick" with the dog much fast.

[rushdoggie]

A neutral, sharp stimuli is a far better "marker" than the human voice. Recent research suggests that it might be because it is processed through the brain differently, bypassing the thinking part and going straight to the 'pleasure center.' This explains why some animals (including my dogs in my experience) get so happy when you start training stuff with a clicker...its like a game, a puzzle and they feel good in an emotional way that goes beyond just being happy to work with you.

 

In addition a clicker is a clear, precise marker that when you master it allows you to mark the tiniest aspect of a behavior, allowing you to shape/capture an infinite degree of behavior: the instant the elbows touch the floor while teaching a down, the second my dogs head turns when jumping in response to a directional cue, the second he opens his mouth when training a retrieve, the glance of the eyes while training a stupid pet trick.

 

For most people, a clicker is the cheapest most convenient neutral stimuli to use...you can buy them everywhere and they are pretty easy to operate. That said, they do have drawbacks: noise sensitive dogs can be afraid, they are yet another item to hold onto, and if your dog is hearing impaired they don't work. There are fancier clickers available that make a softer or different noise, some people use whistles, flashlights or other tricks.

 

Once a behavior is learned, the need for precision is less and a clicker becomes less useful and therefore less necessary.

 

I use the kind that have a small elastic loop and I attach them to my thumb...that way if I let go I don't lose it. I have a dozen or more, scattered around. I keep a few on the fridge by sticking a tiny piece of stick on magnet on them, and I have a pile in my training bag. What can I say, I like the way it works!

 

Here's a link to a Karen Pryor article that talks about the research being done:

 

link

[Ms.DaisyDuke]

I always say "Good Boy!" when Cerb gets something right, and often (mostly) he gets a treat along with it. That way the verbal reward is associated with the treat, is a reward in itself and can be used at a distance....not all behaviors that you want to reinforce happen next to your leg. I'm still unsure how the clicker differs from the "good boy", except possibly the clicker has no other analog/context, etc and is more "precise" because it is separate from the voice which is used for a myriad of other things.

 

It is way more precise for sure, like Kristine noted. You can use a "marker" word if you like. I will use "YES" sometimes, both of my dogs understand the yes and the click to mean what they just did is correct. My oldest dog, I trained every new behaviour with a clicker, my youngest dog is the other way around (the foster home he was in does not clicker train), I find the click is still a faster way for them to understand. Perhaps I am faster with my click reflex than with my "yes".

[ejano]

Did it look like this:

 

because that's my dog, JC. He was just learning that when I posted it. He's better now!

I have a list of 100 tricks that I intend to each my dogs. We cross them off as we learn them. I use a clicker but I believe in shaping behavior rather then luring or physically making them do something. Shaping really makes their minds work and forces them to think.

 

Great video! JC is actually doing better than the one I watched because he was learning to pick the different sizes for himself -- the other dog was given them one at a time. I'm putting the stacker on my list of yard sale hunt items this summer . I found my playskool basket ball hoop for $2.00!

 

 

Would you like to share your list?

 

Liz

[Lewis Moon]

A neutral, sharp stimuli is a far better "marker" than the human voice.Here's a link to a Karen Pryor article that talks about the research being done:

 

link

 

 

Once again, Thanks! This has been a great learning experience....and to the OP, sorry for the thread hijack.

[Root Beer]

It is way more precise for sure, like Kristine noted. You can use a "marker" word if you like.

 

When I use a marker word that I want to operate in the same way as a clicker, I say "click". That's a word I rarely say to my dog in any other context, so I can uphold my end of the contract and deliver a treat every time I say "click".

 

If I am using a marker word for a behavior that the dog is pretty solid on and I am not going to give a treat - or I might ask for more before giving a treat, I use "yes" or "good" or anything that means "that's right!"

 

Just a little system that works really well for me. I doubt I would ever use a verbal marker to shape a new behavior, but with behaviors in progress where the dog is close to having the idea, I might use "click". They do understand it.

[Ms.DaisyDuke]

I doubt I would ever use a verbal marker to shape a new behavior, but with behaviors in progress where the dog is close to having the idea, I might use "click". They do understand it.

 

That's where I'm having difficulties with the new dog. The classes we are taking use a marker word instead of a clicker. I'm taking these classes because they were free with adoption. I find using a marker word to teach a new behaviour very difficult as I was taught with a clicker. I am slowly integrating clicker training into his "training schedule" at home so that when we take the level 2 obedience at my original training facility, he'll know what the hell I'm doing! The way you use "Yes" or "Good" is the way I use it with my oldest dog.

[Root Beer]

That's where I'm having difficulties with the new dog. The classes we are taking use a marker word instead of a clicker.

 

Have you asked if they will let you use a clicker? I've done that at non-clicker facilities and gotten permission. I always get permission to use a clicker, and to refrain from all verbal and physical correction in beginner level classes (all classes, actually, but it's not usually an issue in more advanced classes). No instructor has ever said no - even when I used to train at a place where they still stapled sits and sprayed dogs in the face with vinegar. Usually the instructor just wanted to know what I'm doing and why, and then it's all good.

[Ms.DaisyDuke]

They said I could use a clicker if I wanted too, but I've noticed that 3 of the dogs in the class are kind of "jumpy" and have never been exposed to a clicker. I'm thinking it might be too much for them. There are only 2 classes left anyway and I will be moving on to my regular facility.

[mburtis]

wow this is awesome and this morning i ordered a clicker kit with an intructional book and some other things too so hopefully it will get here and we can start training on sam.he is getting fixed next week to so maybe that will improve his focus some too.