Here’s a quick video clip from my full dog clicker training course on how to charge a clicker. This is a basic first step you need to take…

A lot of people ask me why I’m a proponent of clicker training, and you know what…?

I love it when people ask why I use dog clicker training to teach dogs. Now, obviously I can’t teach you EVERYTHING about clicker training in one little blog post, but what I can do is give you a short introduction to the method. (I’m preparing a FULL clicker training course as we speak, and that will be available shortly. So stay tuned!)

But whenever people ask me about clicker training, it gives me the chance explain some basic dog training principles, such as how using behavior-contingent rewards makes the right things easy, and the wrong things hard.

Because I can shape a behavior, it allows me to pair a click with a treat so that it teaches a dog the exact moment that a specific behavior earns a reward.

It demonstrates the idea that leader controls food, and compels me the teacher to pay attention to detail.

Using food as a reward is a real hot button issue for some people, because they confuse the idea of a behavior-contingent food reward with a bribe.

They think that food is used to bribe the dog.

However, a click/treat is never a bribe. It’s a paycheck!

As I wrote in The Tao of Puppies: How to Raise a Good Dog Without Really Trying, a click/treat is an “exact moment in now.” It immediately tells the dog that a specific physical action is correct.

The problem with giving a dog a friendly pat, or saying “good boy” as a way to reward positive behavior, is that by the time you get the words “good boy” out of your mouth, or put your hand down for a friendly pat, the specific behavior that you want to reward has altered.

To get the best results your timing is very important. You need to click/treat at the exact moment when the behavior occurs. That way, your dog knows what he did to earn the click/treat and — here’s the key — he can repeat it!

If there is too big a delay between the behavior and the click/treat, a dog gets confused.

But by paying attention to the small things, big behaviors can happen quickly and easily.

I’m VERY excited to get this out to everyone because I know so many people want to learn how to use clicker training with their dogs.

I absolutely LOVE clicker training because it’s a FAST, EASY, and FUN way to teach your dog — it can help solve obedience problems and shape behaviors quickly and easily. It’s a method I’ve used time and time again during my 17 years of training dogs, and I use it with my own dogs and the dogs of my clients with great success.

Here’s a video that explains everything.

Just click here or on the graphic below to watch the video.

Clicker Training for Dogs