What is up with Reinforcement?

Who says you can not train a cat?

Clicker Training For Tricks - Mary Ray

What is Clicker Training?

Emily Larlham's video called What is Clicker Training? should be watched by all clicker trainers including experienced trainers. She packs a lot of great information in 10 minutes.

Using a Clicker to Train a Retrieve

Zeva Skates

Clicker Reaction Game

How fast are your reactions?

Click here-----> Sheep Reaction Game to test your clicking skills.

Boundary Training without Shock

Boundary Training

Steve Benjamin, KPACTP, KPA Faculty

Would you like to train your dog to stay in your yard without resorting to electrical shock? There is a way to do it that is inexpensive, takes about the same amount of time, and is just as reliable as the electronic containment systems commercially available.

http://www.clickingwithcanines.com/id56.html

OR

http://www.clickertraining.com/node/2409

Tag Teaching

Here is a collection of videos that show TAG or clicker training people.

http://www.youtube.com/user/tagteacher

Tagging (Teaching with Acoustical Guidance) is clicking for people.
The website says TAGteach is a new way of teaching using positive
reinforcement with a click sound marker to identify successful
performance. We all know there is nothing new about using a clicker.

http://www.tagteach.com/

A tag point is what you are clicking the the person for. I click my
seven year old for various things, but unlike Red and Blue - my dogs -, I tell her what I am
clicking her for - and I don't give her a treat. She works to make me click her. We started out with me passing out M&M but it interrupted the flow. Then I went to me dropping an M&M in to a cup to give to her later and she was not interested in having them. She just wanted to keep
working.

So teacher give their student a string of beads and the student moves a bead from one end of the string to the other.

In my dog training classes I'll give the student a tag point like
Still hands or Treat for position after explaining what I'd like the
person to work on and say their name as the click (since I have four
students at a time in class and all will have different tag points.)

Adult clicker trainers tend to resist being clicked (treated like a
dog) which is why I use a verbal, and use praise instead of a cookie
or a ball toss. ;-)

Look at these videos. WARNING they are using clickers for people. It
drives my dogs crazy. YMMV

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Q4xQ83FI2s

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aQ99KWRE3Ck

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qx56E7dNyWQ&feature=related

I also have been using it (with a clicker) with my seven year old's basketball
team. I worked one on one with each kid and a parent teaching the
parent to tag their kid to improve their drilling skills and footwork. The girls
have gotten very good. If the season was longer and we did not have so
much to cover, I'd get the kids tagging each other.

Also read this article about TAGing teenage dog trainers.

http://www.clickertraining.com/node/2341

A well trained dog

Here is a video that I like but did not take. This is a well trained dog. I wonder if they used a clicker.

Finn working on his basket trick

Easter Basket

Jane is teaching Finn to carry a basket. He showed off the early stages of his trick for me today.

Great Puppy Raising

9 Habits of Effective Clicker Trainers Part 1 Using Rewards

This video is a must watch for all clicker trainers!



This blog is also not to be missed.

www.viassistancedogs.blogspot.com

Blue Working

Lynnda took video of me working Blue. She also provided the notes under the videos to explain what I was working on with Ms. Blue.

Here is Robin working to desensitize Blue, her GSD, to the small & medium two dogs lying quietly in the ring to the camera’s right. Robin is doing Look At That with Blue as well as moving to add more distance between Blue & the dogs.

Here is Robin working to desensitize Blue, her GSD, to the small & medium two dogs lying quietly in the ring to the camera’s right. Robin is doing Look At That with Blue as well as moving to add more distance between Blue & the dogs. Robin is probably giving Blue a bit too much leash; if the leash was shorter, Blue might have had more opportunities for reinforcment.

Here we are having Robin demonstrate the choose-to-heel exercise, clicking the dog the moment it drives towards heel position, with the handler to deliver the tidbit in heel position. Think Click for Action, Reward for Position -- as clicker master Bob Bailey often says.

These two Teaching Heeling videos are for Minnesota 4-H dog project leaders & trainers. The kids in 4-H have to pass an obedience test that emphasizes heeling [like most obedience competition] before they can do agility with the dog.

Robin or Blue have never done this exercise this way (and it is only the third time Blue has ever been to that building).

Clicker Bird Training

I was looking at bird clicker training videos to give me some ideas for working with the birds at work. Holly and Jane have inspired me to work with some animal that is NOT a dog with the clicker.

Check this video out.




I just want to train the birds at work to stop trying to bite me! Anything else would be extra!

Fixing Red's Crate Screaming

This is how I am fixing Red's unhappiness in a crate.

First thing I did was take away the crate in the car and I stopped
using the crate in the house so that I could retrain it. Red is a soft
whiny dog as several people on this list will attest. I will add back
the car crate in another week or two. He had gotten to the point where
he did not want to jump in the car and I had to shove him in the
crate.

Now we feed Red all his meals in a crate - with the door open to start
but now I close the door while he is eating. Red goes in his crate
first, I then deliver his meal. I latch the door and walk away. I
return to let him out as soon as my other dog is done eating as Red is
the slower of the two. That way I can return and open the door before
he finishes eating. However I think it is time for me to start
returning after he is done but before he is noisy about it.

I always leaving the crate door open when the dogs are not inside. A
couple times a day I'd toss treats in the crates while the dog were
out side playing. Both dogs run in to their crates when they come in
the house now from being outside to check for any stray treats. They
just stay long enough to eat the treats.

I put a very comfy pad in the crates. I found Red napping in his crate
with the door open the other day. It was just before dinner time and
all the comfy dog beds were in the washer.

I started doing formal crate training sessions. Red used to be great
in his crate so basically I am *retraining.* I started with clicking
him to go in to a crate. I put a crate in the living room and one
next to my computer in my office. I tied the doors open. I started
with just clicking Red dog for looking at the crate, moving towards
it, putting a paw in it, etc. When he has a body part in, I toss the
treats past him in to the back of the crate instead of clicking him
which causes him to come out of the crate to collect his treat. Soon
times I close the door with out lacking it. He'll stay. I let him out
before he whines. Some times I latch it.

I just started walking away from him while in the crate and leaving
him with a stuffed kong or another goody. And I've been leaving him a
minute or two. Sometimes I send him in the crate and ask him to stay
with the door open and me near by. I think all the mat training we
have been doing helps a lot too. I have not put his mat in a crate.
Hmmm.

I started class with a treat and train on the top of a wire crate. I
found that Red never left work mode. He would eat and whine and eat
and whine and every once in a while if he could not see me but could
hear me talking to the class, he'd scream and or bark and then go back
to eating the falling treats.

So now every I class I spend a few minutes at the beginning of each
class to shape him to go in the crate. I don't leave him for long. I
take him out and we go do mat work. Later in the class I do another
session. And then after class we do a third. I put the thickest
comfyest warmest sleeping bag that I could find in the largest crate I
could find. I've been putting canned tripe in his kong. And I let him
out of the crate as soon as he is very settled and comfy. I do leave
him and go out of sight while he is working on his kong. He'll now go
in the crate in class when I request it and stay until released. And
after released he will turn around and reenter the kennel to check and
see if he missed any treats.

(Lynnda is this what you mean by training posts?)

Training Games

Chewing a cookie

Holding a dumb

Waiting for a click

Checking the camera bag

Leaping for joy

Cookies

My life has gone to the dogs.

"Cookie? Let's see."

"Follow the cookie! Follow the cookie! Follow the cookie!"

"I am down! Gimme the cookie?"

"We don't need no stinkin' cookies."

"You are getting sleepy.... Drop a cookie!"

"If you want me to jump it, show me the cookies!"

Smart Dog