Questions about clicker training?

I've recently started clicker training with my dog and am a little confused.



1. Is the click supposed to be the only reward, or do you always follow it with a treat when training? Why do you need the click if you are just going to give it a treat right after? My dog stops paying attention to the training if I don't give her a treat.



2. How do you add verbal or physical commands to the actions your dog is doing?



3. How do you use clicker and treats to train your dog to play dead?Questions about clicker training?
No, the clicker is not the reward.



The clicker is to help your speed in marking a behavior. It's a lot quicker and easier to just depress your thumb on the clicker than it is to fish a treat out of a bag. Clickers are there to improve your timing as a trainer, that's all.



So when you see the behavior you're working toward, you click and then treat. If you're doing the clicker training properly, you have taught the dog that the click is praise and a reward is coming.Questions about clicker training?
Hmm well when u get your dog to do the trick click right after so he/she knows that that is what you wanted.
I'm also curious about this... when you click how does your dog know what trick to do? They aren't mind readers...
you click the clicker when he does the good thing



when you have a treat hold it so that the dog can smell it but cant get it then wait for him/her to sit and give them the treat the next time when he/she sits say sit when they do and after a while the will learn to sit when u say sit
Think of the clicker as a camera. You're taking a picture of the behavior (or part of the behavior) you want. The click tells the dog YES what you did at that exact moment is what I want and now I'll pay you for it. The reward could be food, playing tug, being let outside, whatever your dog finds rewarding at that moment in time. Its not a reward if the one receiving it doesn't think so.



You add the cue, verbal, hand signal or whatever when your dog is reliably offering the behavior. If you've broken the behavior down into several smaller steps don't add the cue until you are getting the finished behavior.



There are some videos of teaching a dog to play dead here http://www.equinenow.com/video-num-95394鈥?/a> It may be easier to see it than explain it.
The clicker is used to mark the behavior you want to reinforce, it is not the reinforcer itself. Although the reinforcement is often treats, it can be other things as well- I play tug, toss a toy, or occasionally use life rewards such as opening a door, as well as using treats. One important distinction is that the treat (or other reinforcer) comes AFTER the behavior (and for that matter, after the click), not before. The click makes it easier to mark what behavior you are paying for, especially in dogs who move fast, and also makes working at a distance easier, as you can mark the correct behavior (with the clicker) and then move closer to the dog to reinforce (with a treat or other reinforcer).



The clicker is used to teach a dog a new behavior, and is then phased out. I suggest incorporating life rewards into the training, as you'll generally be doing these things anyway, may as well use them to train and maintain the behavior you want, instead of doling them out for free- or behavior you don't want!



Dogs who stop paying attention when not given a treat need to have other reinforcers incorporated into their training. Many of these dogs also won't perform unless a treat is visible before-hand. That is not an issue with correct clicker-training, as the reinforcer comes after the behavior, not before. It is not uncommon for dog who are taught using lure-reward methods to include the presence of the treat as part of the cue to perform the behavior- not their fault they're good at discriminating what is important in their environment! Some people attempt to incorporate the clicker into lure-reward training, but I find that this often results in the dog not being very tuned into the clicker, as the treat is more noticeable to them, and the clicker just becomes background noise.



My basic process for teaching the dog commands (I usually use the term ';cues';) is that when I can bet $20 that the dog will do the behavior, I start to name it by saying it before the dog does it. Once I've done that, say 8 times in a row, then I hesitate, and if the dog hesitates, I then give the cue. Each of these has been reinforced with a treat (still using a clicker at this point). From this point onward, anytime the dog offers the behavior that I haven't asked for it, I won't reinforce. I do reinforce all the times I ask for it and the dog does it. Then I start mixing things up, asking for other known behaviors, and occasionally giving a nonsense word (and clicking/treating for NOT doing it!)



I like to shape behaviors such as playing dead, clicking for successive approximations of the behavior I want (dog down, dog shifted on one hip, dog flopped over with head still up, dog flopped with head down for a second, then build duration). Dog needs to be clicker savvy for shaping- not only that click= treat, but also understand that his behavior makes the click happen, and that if he doesn't hear a click for something he was previously clicked for, it's time to try something else.



I strongly suggest that you find a good trainer in your area, and/or get some books and videos on the subject. I suggest the following:



www.clickersolutions.com (and join listgroup if interested)



www.canisclickertraining.com (e-book to purchase, excellent!)



www.clickertraining.com (has many articles, also some streaming videos, some free, some not, and both books and videos for sale)



Here is a youtube video that explains clicker -training (full video available on the above mentioned site):



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IC367wKGi鈥?/a>