Keeping Positive
According to Pat Millers book The Power of Positive Dog Training , clicker training itself is actually derived from methods used to train captive dolphins and other marine animals.
Say a trainer is trying to train a dolphin to jump out of the water on command. How would he start? He can't physically make the dolphin jump. Luckily, one of dolphins' natural behaviors is to jump. So the trainer can watch the dolphin and reward it every time it jumps on its own. However, how can he do that? He can't swim out and to give it a fish as a reward, because that would take too long. And he can't call the dolphin over to the side of the pool to reward it, because the dolphin would think it was being rewarded for coming to him. It wouldn't see a connection between getting a fish and jumping out of the water. So, how can the trainer teach the animal to associate the command to jump, with the actual jump?
That's where the marker comes in.
Usually, in this case the marker would be a whistle. First the trainer offers the dolphin a treat, blowing the whistle every time he offers a fish. Soon the dolphin associates the sound of the whistle with getting a fish ... like Pavlov's dogs associated the sound of a bell with food. Next, the trainer watches the dolphin. When it jumps on it's own, he blows the whistle. The dolphin comes for its reward. Soon the dolphin realizes that jumping equals a toot on the whistle, which means he's earned a treat. Now all the trainer has to do is pair up the jump with a signal, so that he can command to dolphin to jump on cue.
Now let's look at dogs. Let's say you are trying to teach a dog to sit. First you would get the dog to associate a marker with food. Often the marker is a small plastic device called a clicker, for the sound it makes. In my somewhat limited experience, Dingo and Chelsea, both reacted well with the clicker. However, Sephie is terrified of the sound it makes. So for her I just use a verbal "good girl".
To start out, give the dog a few freebies. Start just automatically feeding the dog treats for no reason, clicking the clicker each time.
Now it's time to work. Hold the treat, but don't
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