Use of a clicker is a unique form of training used on many animals including dogs.
You will be extremely surprised how easy and effective clicker training is to train your German Shepherd dog.
Training in any form needs to be fun and desirable to see results – this is the case more so with dogs. Clicker training makes training not only fun for your dog, but also more enjoyable for the trainer as it really is a simple process even children can effectively do.
The key part of clicker training involves a simple device called a “clicker” which is used to create a clicking sound. The clicker is used to mark the point in time in which your dog performs a good action. Immediately after the clicker is used, the trainer will give the dog a treat being either food and/or praise. When using food, you should gradually use smaller pieces of “treat” each time, so eventually your dog will not expect a treat every time it does something good.
Clicker training makes it easy for your German Shepherd dog to learn because:
- When it hears the clicking sound, it knows exactly which “good” action they performed
- The dog will be eager to perform the action again due to the reward it will receive
You may be asking yourself why bother using a clicker, why not just say a word or whistling sound etc. You could use other forms besides the clicker, but they will not be as effective, simply because the clicker produces a distinctive sound which your dog will not hear elsewhere.
There are three simple steps associated with clicker training, they are:
- Wait for the behavior
- Mark the behavior (with a click!)
- Reward the behavior
You will need to repeat the steps several times for each behavior. Try to be patient with your dog, as it will take several attempts and is not something that will happen overnight.
It’s important to note that clicker training is only a temporary training method and the ultimate goal is to train the dog to respond to your cues (i.e.voice command), without using any clicking device or treats. This process is quite a delicate one, as you don’t want to mislead or confuse your dog. Once your dog repeats an action several times and has been clicked for them, they will be ready to learn the cue.
All you need to do is command an action (say “sit” for example) and wait for him/her to complete the action. Immediately after, use the clicker and then reward the dog. No click should be given if the animal performs the action without you asking for it.
Remember training should be enjoyable for your dog, don’t treat it as some military camp. You don’t even need to always be forceful in your approach, you can also just sit back, watch your dog and immediately click and reward whenever it does something good – it will soon work out what is right from wrong.
