Clickertraining- the 4 secrets of becoming a supertrainer by Morten Egtvedt

Author:Morten Egtvedt
Language: eng
Format: mobi, pdf
Tags: Dogs - Training, Dog Behaviour, Dogs
Published: 2011-02-05T17:27:27+00:00

Step 7

Up to now, we haven’t used a cue at all. We’ve just waited for the

dog to perform the desired behavior on its own and reinforced this.

Now it’s time to add the cue “crawl.” There’s no point in doing this

until the dog crawls the way you want it to. We don’t want to teach

the dog that “crawl” means anything but “crawl perfectly”, right?

Cue the dog when it begins to crawl. Work towards only clicking if

the dog waits to begin to crawl until you’ve cued it.

Step 8

Now you can begin to vary things in your training. Teach the dog to

stop crawling when you stop walking. Teach the dog to crawl and

turn in different angles. And you really want to impress your

neighbours, teach the dog to weave between your legs when

crawling. Teach the dog to come crawling at a recall (you stand in

front of the dog and call it to you crawling into heel position!). If

your dog knows all this, “ordinary” crawling will be a piece of cake.

The first few times you work on a variation, you can bring your

target stick back out again and then gradually remove it.

In this fashion we teach the dog how to crawl without as much as

showing a treat in advance. The treat will come out of the pocket

when the dog does what you want it to. And furthermore, we can

stand up straight from the beginning. In this way, we don’t have to

“put pressure” on the dog by bending over it. And the clicker allows

us to reinforce in the precise moment that the dog is crawling at its

very best – in the middle of a sharp turn, exactly when it stretches

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out the back legs, etc. A training buddy might be of good help

during training. He can stand beside you and click when he sees the

dog meet criteria, and you can walk tall without looking down on

your dog.

Heel work

Teaching the dog to come to heel is an important foundation skill if

you want to compete in obedience. The most common way to teach

this is to lure the dog with a treat, but you can use targeting here

as well. The easiest way is to use your own index finger as a target.

Since this isn’t a book about obedience first and foremost, we’ll only

tell you how to teach heel very briefly. We believe that you can fill

in the blanks on your own.

Step 1

Click the dog for following your index finger a few times. The dog

should be able to follow your finger for 3-4 seconds before you click.

Step 2

Now you can use your index finger to lead your dog into heeling

position by your left foot. In the beginning, it might be clever to

work next to a wall or next to the curb. By doing this, you’re setting

the environment so that the dog has to keep its rear end in. It’s for

the best if the dog learns to come to sit correctly from the

beginning.

Step 3

Now you have to reduce using your index finger as quickly as

possible. Gradually move your finger less and less until the dog

comes to heel when you’re standing perfectly still.

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