Advantages of training with clicker or whistle?

[Kingsroadie]

As per title really...Would you also use verbal commands? Is either a clicker or a whistle "better"? What are the advantages/disadvantages of either? (Apart from obviously if you are doing gundog training and you want to call the dogs back from far away without bellowing across the field and disturbing the guns or the birds!)

Thanks!

Kingsroadie, my two favorite books on this subject are The Complete idiot's guide to positive dog training and The Culture Clash

The first one is more a 'how to' and the second one is more 'why to', although it has a very comprehensive section in the back on how to clicker train your dog through all the basics.

The Culture Clash is a facinating read about how dogs learn, and funny to read too.

i'm a clicker groupie, not expert so will leave the books or minimu to explain how it's done.

Kikopup on YouTube is also great, and has lots of videos on how to train specific behaviours with your clicker.

Fab - thanks Slubber! Have just downloaded the first one to my Kindle...

No worries. Hope you and your dog have lots of fun

Thank you - we are getting him in just under 2 weeks and am doing as much research I can do now so we start off on the right foot and with consistency.

pfft.

Don't duck and hide!

I bought a puppy from a good breeder and have no feelings of guilt whatsoever.

Enjoy your new puppy and ask for advice on here whenever you want.

Ha - I did try looking into rescue. I promise. And I know this sounds silly but with a young daughter I really do want a dog whose history I know fully (I know that won't guarantee anything happening but I can hopefully make it as unlikely as possible). Thanks a lot! Currently trying to decide on which food to feed. Think Acana or fish4dogs (or perhaps a mix as am slightly unsure about feeding a dog a fully fish-based - ie no meat - diet...)

Have you read the ongoing food thread atm?

fwiw although I feed my dog raw I don't think you need to mix your dogs kibbles, infact I'm sure it is Not A Good Idea. They are both complete foods (and good brands I believe) and should give your puppy everything it needs.

Just remember to switch from your breeders food to your new food slowly so not to upset your pups tum.

Oh ha ha, I see you are the OP on the food thread.

sorry

Haha - yes thank you for your input on there too! Okay thanks for advice re not mixing - I thought as much - wouldn't do that with my cats but for some reason I just feel a bit unsure of feeding all fish to a dog. (no idea why!) That's why I am also looking at TOTW, Orijen, Acana etc. Have just read a few things about Orijen being too high in protein (is that really possible?) and causing the runs! Hence Acana instead. My breeder feeds Burns and will obv provide a bag for me to come home with - I was thinking about buying another small bag as I don't want to turn his world upside down immediately!

Sorry this is totally off topic for this thread. But on that note (and having read a bit more on the subject) : aren't you slightly buggered if you forget your clicker in the house and go to the park? And don't you have to watch your pet constantly to try and enforce behaviour which they do naturally as you don't start of with command words if clicker training? I suppose that is virtually impossible with an 18 month old human and so do you just bring the clicker out at designated training session time? Argh am just not sure as I have only done command training before which you can do anywhere anytime. (NB smoke starting to come out of my ears...)

Thank you again (in advance, again)

No no no, of course you're not buggered if you forget your clicker . There is no buggery on the clicker training front. Everything is calm and happy.

I'm not quite sure what command training is, but with the clicker you don't have to follow your dog round 24/7 waiting for them to do something you can click them for.

OK (the books will say this better than me)

First, before you do anything you have to charge the clicker. You click and then treat, click and then give your dog a tiny treat (cheese, or frankfurter most loved here). Do it about 10 times and then stop. Do a few little sessions for a couple of days and your dog will have it. Click = treat coming my way.

Right, then you have got that you can start to lure your dog into the position or behaviour you want. So with a sit, you hold a treat in your hand and then lift it up above the dog's nose, eventually the dog will sit it's arse on the floor to look up at/smell/get the treat.
As soon as the bottom hits the floor, click and treat.
Repeat. Moment arse hits floor click and then treat.
You are marking for the dog the EXACT moment of the behaviour you want. The dog will get it pretty quicky....ah haaaaa if I sit down then I make the nice lady make the click noise and then I get some food.

Spend a couple of minutes on this, a few times a day and your dog will be throwing sits at you to make you click. LOOK LOOK I SIT I SIT!!

You haven't added in a word or a hand signal yet.

When your dog is reliably sitting for you, you can get rid of the lure. Do the same thing lifting your fingers above the dogs head, but without food.The first few times you do it the dog will be all, wtf, where is the food? but you click and treat exactly the same as soon as it's but hits the floor. You can start to open out your hand, palm facing upwards, lifting up above the dog's head (same action) and your dog should sit down. Click and treat.

So then you have the hand signal for sit. Flat hand, palm upwards, bending elbow so your hand moves up, and your dog knows that that hand movement means I sit my arse down: click and treat.

Spend plenty of time on that (like several days) and then you can start to say the word sit as you do the hand signal. Repeat repeat repeat and finally you can try the word cue without the hand. Click and treat.

Hope that makes sense.

You use the food lure in the same way to get stand, down, roll over etc etc

You won'f be clicking and treating forever. When the cue and the action is down and sorted you can start weaning off using the clicker.

Omg and that is the longest post I ever wrote in 8 years of mning

Yay for Slubberguillion post

Obviously I meant Slubberdegullion post

Yes that does make sense! Thank you! So sorry I had to make you write it all out for me - I really appreciate it...

Nice to know there is no buggery with clicking.

Btw when I said command training that was a made up way of saying: just saying sit and pushing dog's bottom down or trying to make it sit by holding treat up etc (but saying sit rather than clicking).

I think I got ever so slightly confused when looking online (ever so reliable you know .... !) as it seemed to suggest in some places that you don't try and make the dog sit, you just wait for it to do so. ie leaving me to envisage dragging my toddler around while a mental puppy plays and lying in wait for it to randomly sit, and then managing to get out my clicker at the exact same time and clicking it. I seem to have lost all common sense tonight. What a twat.

Ooh just another quick question - i promise to let you get on with your evening in peace...

If the dog starts sitting by himself and you aren't doing a training session do you still try to click him if you see him? Or just ignore as you haven't asked him to?

Ok, so assuming I remember my whistle when I go out, would other dogs respond to the whistle as well? don't want to be surrounded by them every time I blow it!!

mm not sure.

I think I would probably ignore. You want the dog to get into the habit of watching you for cues. When you get on to doing sits and then downs and then stands all in the same session it has to really really concentrate on either your hand or verbal cues. At the start it will just throw all sorts of sits or downs at you (usually what you have been working on in the preceding session) hoping you will click and treat. But YOU are training THEM, not the other way round.

That's what I thought too. He needs to learn to do it when I want him too (Obv I will also allow him to sit or lie down if he fancies too - haha - just not going to get a treat for it!) Hollow laugh indeed - rather like my daughter!

Kingsroadie: this might come across totally rude and patronising, but I don't mean it that way!!! You didn't use the 'command method' with your friend's puppy you used 'lure and reward'. The treat lured the puppy into the position, the reward ensured he was likely to repeat the behaviour. Since you were saying the word as the puppy was sitting you were merely associating the word with the behaviour (a different step in the training). With clicker you use the lure (as per the start above) to get the behaviour the first few times and then you wait for the dog to figure it out for himself so that he offers the behaviour. You can introduce the command right at the start as he sits (as above), but personally I think you need to wait until the behaviour is established on the principle that 'you get what you name', i.e. if you name an inconsistent behaviour 'sit' you are going to end up with inconsistent sits.

Yes, you click when the dog displays the behaviour, then treat (or other reward, such as toy, freedom, praise, etc. but treats work best for most dogs) then repeat. You firstly lure the dog, then wait, however if the behaviour happens by coincidence you click and treat. What you want at this stage is the behaviour, if you can, in any way, produce the behaviour then you can reward it, and then it's more likely to be repeated. Yes you introduce the command when the behaviour is more established. You can phase out the clicker but ideally not for a couple of years and not for new behaviours. For example, when B did obedience she learnt her sit/stays and down/stays with the clicker, strengthened them with the clicker and then I associated a further marker, a nod of the head to say 'keep doing what you are doing'. Gradually I phased out the clicker and used the head nodding marker, then made this more subtle so it became a nod with the eyelids that was pretty much imperceptible to anyone other than me and her! Great for reasuring her during long sit/stays! A neutral 'good' can replace the clicker but you can easily end up with dozens of the little things all over the place. With young dogs, or when training new behaviours or when dealing with problems I always have treats and clicker with me 24/7.

Thanks Booboostoo. Don't worry - not patronising - I only called it the "command" method as I had no idea what it was actually called, and I knew what I meant when I used that phrase...I was only about 12 and no one had taught me how to train a dog so I used what I thought was common sense - I think people did used to use that method, did they? I could be totally wrong! Not that it terribly matters though.

So you think that if the dog sits down at any point during the day and I am around to see him doing it then I should click and treat? (God, am going to need eyes in the back of my head for this - not sure how often it will happen outside dedicated training times, especially as you have to get the timing spot on re when you click to reinforce that particular behaviour).

Thank you for explaining it to me - I have also started reading the training book Slubber recommended!

For something like sit, then no, you don't need to keep your eyes peeled at all. Tbh with two or three 5 minute sessions per day using the clicker as I explained you will have a good sit to a hand cue in a few days and you will have a pretty much perfect sit to either the hand signal or verbal cue within a week.

Save your eyes in the back of your head for toilet training!

Don't stress about it Kingsroadie. Once you get into the swing of it it's fine, and dog's are very forgiving if you muck up a training session. Like they care really, you are using positive reinforcement (no punishments) and spending time interacting with your dog! They'll love you for it even if you haven't perfected a grade A obedience manoeuvre.

Haha - yes will need 360 degree rotation for the toilet training!

I will just see what happens when he comes home - it's a bit like a newborn - be prepared, read as much as you can/want to but see what happens when they come home as everything does not go to plan... Thanks Slubber (and everyone else) for all your advice - will stop thinking about it now.

As long as the principles have been decided on it should hopefully fall into place. Def see the advantages of positive reinforcement although will be hard not to say "no" etc especially if he jumps and nibbles the baby as she won't understand to ignore him - although she has been around lots of dogs and is getting quite good at the brush off already, and if I go to her and comfort her rather than play with him it's sort of the same thing really. Anyway what will be will be ad I can't wait to have him here!

Good luck and have lots of fun.

Loads of people still use 'lure and reward' and if you want to continue with this method it should be perfectly possible to find a club that works this way. I started with 'lure and reward' about 14 years ago (dominance techniques have never worked for me temperament wise they were never an option), then my club voted to change to clicker which I knew nothing about but they set up a training programme to train up more assistants and by the end of that I was a convert! In my opinion clicker is faster and more versatile than lure and reward.

No, you don't follow the dog and click the sits. The only things you reward as they happen is toilet and any time the puppy is near you in walks (even if you are walking in the garden). This last one is very important as you are setting the foundations for a good recall as you are teaching the puppy that everytime it comes to you it gets rewarded (there is nothing more frustrating than a dog that you can't let off the lead because it runs off).

I would also start a 'leave it' exercise with food pretty early on to discourage the puppy from begging for and stealing food.

However, as Slubberdegullion says, don't worry too much! It will all be fine and you will 'learn on the job'. In a year's time you will know loads of things and have your own opinions on what works and what doesn't.