Pet Training

Whether you have just brought home a new puppy or a rescue dog, training should begin straight away. Your dog can pick up bad habits if allowed to get away with certain behaviour when settling in that you later feel will be unacceptable. For example you allow your puppy to sleep in your room for the first few nights as he is crying, a few months down the line you cannot shut your dog in the kitchen at night because he barks the house down! So decide on the ground rules before your pet arrives and stick to them. You will need patience and a willing pet. You will also need a small, tasty treat to reward your dog with and a quiet room with no distractions to enable you and your dog to concentrate. It can be very helpful to join a training class for guidance and socialisation or work from a reputable dog-training book. Ensure that you have suitable training aids or equipment to hand such as clicker, harness, lead etc. Once your dog is performing a certain task reliably you can start to ask them to do this in a 'real' situation.

So how do you get started?

Like any kind of training, start in an environment that your dog is comfortable and relaxed in. Begin to associate the click with a reward by click-treat-click-treat-click etc holding the clicker out of view. Your dog will eventually begin to associate the clicker with a reward until the click becomes a reward in itself. In obedience training you give your dog an idea of what is expected and then when he does it right you can reward him. For example tempt your dog into the sit position by holding a treat in front of your dog’s nose and move your hand back over your dogs head. As he tries to keep the treat under his nose his bottom will automatically hit the floor, at this stage you can then click and treat. As you repeat this only give treats intermittently and introduce a command. Allow your dog time to work out what you want him to do and be patient.

Clicker Training?

Clicker training is a simple and effective method of training based on a positive reinforcement reward system. The clicker is a simple plastic box with a metal tongue. When compressed it emits a double 'click' sound. The clicker is used to reward a specific behaviour and works on most dogs’ willingness to want to please their owners and earn their prize. The positive aspect of the clicker is that it is specific to the behaviour your dog is displaying at the time that you want to reward. Praise such as "who’s a good boy!" is not as effective in teaching your dog what is going to get it its reward and so it will take longer for your dog to learn. As the click is sounded as the behaviour is happening, there can be no doubt about what the dog is being rewarded for. Clicker training uses your dog’s own natural desire to learn and obtain a reward without having to use any force or punishment. If your dog does not do what you are trying to train, it will not get a click reward and so will try harder to do what you want to gain recognition.