Clicker Training

FOOD! Good food too. Not that dry biscuit crap! I want chicken! When I used to show in conformation Mom used all kinds of good stuff so now I'm aware of the tastier things. Vega and Cosmo are happy with whatever but they are rescues. Mom has to be really peppy too! I like it when she gets all high pitched! It's entertaining.

I'm clicker trained too....

What the heck's a clicker? Dad calls the tv channel changer a clicker? Mom calls it a remote control? What are you talking about? I'll do anything for food, but I didn't think the remote was something I could relate to food?

We don't actually get the clicker as a reward, it just signals that we did something right and that a reward is coming. It usually starts out to be a food reward for those of us who are food motivated, but it can be throwing your ball, or lots of good petting and praise. The advantage to using a clicker is that it is just a couple miliseconds faster than saying "good girl," so we begin to figure out exactly what behavior we just did that earned us a reward. Clicker training rocks! The best part is that if mom clicks us by accident, we still get a treat! Click=reward in my brain!

Being a beagle, I am always persuaded by a cookie :) But I was also "clicker-trained" as a pup and it worked well on me. It only worked for certain things though. Like if I was getting into something when I wasn't suppose to be, Mom would click and say no. I started associating that noise with a bad feeling. However, Mom would NOT advise using the clicker for any type of potty training.

Actually the clicker should only ever be used as a positive reinforcement, so that we dogs associate something GOOD with it.