Clicker Training

At Marshland Road the emphasis is on all methods of training, be it food reward, voice/praise reward, toy reward or using the clicker method.  Just what is a clicker?

 The clicker is a small plastic box with a metal strip that makes a sharp, clicking sound when pushed and released.  You may remember them at children’s birthday parties when you were younger.  Its value is that the unique sound doesn’t get lost in the babble of words we are constantly throwing at our dogs.  It is faster than saying “Good dog” and allows the trainer to mark with great precision the behaviour for which the dog is being rewarded.  Paired with something the dog finds very rewarding, the clicker becomes a powerful tool for achieving the desired behaviour from our dogs.

So how does it work in dogs?  Clicker training uses positive rewards to tell a dog what he’s doing right, rather than punishing him for what he does wrong (as traditional dog training methods often do).  It relies on behaviour shaping, not physical manipulation (research has indicated that we all learn better if we do it ourselves instead of being “helped” by someone else).  Instead of pushing the dog into a sit, the trainer waits for the dog to sit on his own or lures him with a treat into position.  The instant his rear goes down, the clicker goes off and the dog gets the treat.  The speed with which this is understood by the dog borders on miraculous; even young puppies often start offering sits on their own within two minutes.