Clickertraining & Shaping
The very basic of clicker training is, of course, the clicker. This little plastic gadget is a tool to help you tell your dog
exactly when it does something right. It helps you being precise in your communication with your dog(s), and it should only be used with treats or some
other sort of reward. The click in it self is meant to tell your dog it did the right thing, AND that the reward is coming.
When you want to start clicker training your dog, the first thin you need to do is teaching your dog that click equals treat. Have the dog in front of you, and the treats or rewards you want to use close at hand. Do not show them to your dog. As soon as the dog looks at you, sits, lays down or does something else it should be rewarded for, click and give treat. At first the dog will probably wonder what the sound is all about. Or, maybe he/she's like my dog, which didn't seem to notice the click at all. She was too concerned with the treat :) Repeat this several times, until it seems clear that your dog has grasped the fact that the click means a treat is coming. You can check this by clicking when the dog is turned away from you. If it's understood the whole exercise, he/she will turn around and come to you to get a treat.
As soon as your dog has an understanding of the clicker, you can start training by clicking for any positive behavior. Anything from coming to you on it's own initiative, sitting, looking at you, laying down, standing. Only your imagination sets the limits. And the more behaviors you click and reward, the more likely your dog is to try different things to get that magic sound. It's one of the best things with clicker training, in my opinion, that the dog learns that doing different things is positive, and taking the initiative and being creative gives rewards. Instead of being lead to the right behaviors, your dog learns to try out different things and to use it's brain. And it's so much fun! I have to warn you, though; it is a lot harder to start clicker training an older dog than starting off with a young puppy. This is because the older dog has probably learnt that the handler will show him/her what to do, and it takes a while before it will understand that offering different behaviors is rewarding. But hang in there, it can be done!
In clicker training we have a few more tools that are important in future obedience training. These include targeting and shaping.