What’s Clicker Training?

To understand clicker training, you need to know two simple concepts of behavioral science:
· Rewarded behaviors are likely to be repeated
· The faster a reward follows a behavior, the easier it is for an animal to figure out which behavior is being rewarded (three seconds or less is the rule of thumb)

For example, if you want to teach your dog to sit on cue, you can encourage him to sit by luring his head up with a treat (which naturally makes the butt go down). The instant his butt hits the floor you shove a treat in his face. Do this a few times and your dog will figure out that butt-on-ground makes a treat appear. If you delay the reward and meanwhile your dog yawns, or stands up, or sniffs the ground, he is not likely to figure out that butt-on-ground makes a treat appear.

The instant reward approach works great if you are standing right next to an animal and can instantly deliver the treat. Suppose you want to teach an animal to do something but it is physically impossible for you to be right next to the animal and instantly deliver the treat? For example how do you train a dolphin to jump on cue? It would be difficult (if not dangerous) for the trainer to be right next to the dolphin and deliver the treat (the fish) the instant the dolphin jumps.

This is where the concept of clicker training comes in, which in fact was originally developed by marine mammal trainers. The marine mammal trainers taught the dolphins that whenever they heard a certain distinct sound (a whistle), a reward would follow. Then, when the dolphin jumped and heard the whistle, he knew that behavior would be rewarded with a fish in the near future. As long as the distinct sound is instantly delivered, the reward can be delivered later, thereby getting around the three-second rule. When the concept expanded to other animals, trainers began using a small device that makes a metallic click sound when a button is pressed (as kids we had toys like this called “crickets”), hence the name “clicker training”.

Trainers now use clicker training for human gymnasts, chickens, bears, horses, and every other kind of animal. You can use a distinct voice sound instead of a clicker, but it is more difficult to make a consistently distinct sound with your voice. With clicker training you start by “priming the clicker”. For about 20 or so repetitions, click and quickly give your dog a treat. Pretty soon your dog will start expecting a treat every time he hears a click. Once he knows that a reward always follows a click, you can delay the reward longer than three seconds and it won’t matter because he knows a click means a reward is coming.

Now you are ready to use the clicker for training. Suppose you want to train your dog to sit on cue even when you are at a distance from him. You ask your dog to sit and if he does you instantly click, then walk over and give him the reward. If you weren’t using the clicker you would have to deliver the reward within three seconds, which would be difficult from a distance. The clicker is mainly used for initially teaching a new behavior. Once your dog learns the new behavior, you can stop using the clicker for that behavior.

Clicker training takes some practice and mechanical skill, but once you are good at it you can teach new behaviors quickly. An expert in and early pioneer of clicker training for dogs is Karen Pryor. To learn more about clicker training, visit her website: https://www.clickertraining.com.

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