Clickers have been around for decades and have been used for marine mammals, chickens, horses, zoo animals, and more. This is a great tool that we have available to us for teaching cute tricks, solving aggression problems, or teaching a giraffe to give its hoof for care. It’s a tool I use in most of my case work teaching dogs and cats.

We have made some great strides in animal behavior when it comes to how to communicate with our pets. Since we don’t share a verbal vocabulary, clickers are a great way to let our pets know what we like.

Clicker= Yes! Good job. You are going to get a treat.

We can say all of that with one click! Clicker training gives a very clear marker sound that can aid in our training. A great benefit is that it’s consistent for the animal so no matter who is working with them, they are going to get the same sound. It’s also succinct so we can continue our training exercise rapidly.

Clickers are given to almost every client I work with. Yes, there are circumstances that don’t really need a clicker, and some clients who aren’t comfortable using them. But for most clients, clickers are going to be the fastest most effective way to get our training executed.

There are a few important rules that go along with clicker training. So for example, please don’t give one to your toddler or small child to click endlessly. Those are also situations where sometimes we choose not to use a clicker. It’s too confusing for the dog, and also becomes the wah wah wah teacher (tuning it out) if not used correctly.

A few key rules-

1. For every click, there must be a treat.

2. Click only once, marking the pet’s specific behavior that you liked.

3. Since the clicker is a marker, the timing of the click is most important.

-For every click there must be a treat.

Otherwise, we get the wah wah wah effect of the clicker not meaning anything to the dog or pet. We want to keep the strength of the tool by using it properly and always giving a treat for a click. Even if your timing wasn’t great and you didn’t mean to click, the pet still gets a treat.

-Click only once, marking the pet’s specific behavior that you liked.

The click needs to be happening when the behavior you like is happening. For example, when I’m teaching a dog ‘sit’, I wait for them to offer the behavior, then click for position. I toss the treat for them to get so they can have the opportunity to sit and get another click and treat. If I were to click more than once when the dog is sitting, it’s likely that I’m either clicking for other behaviors such as the dog getting ready to sit or marking them over and over again for the sit, which is also not necessary and can be confusing.

-Since the clicker is a marker, the timing of the click is most important.

I think of this like taking a picture and capturing that exact behavior. Clicker training is muscle memory, so the more you practice the better you get. Getting great at timing is how you train super difficult and drawn out behaviors such as service dog training, dog dancing, scent work with search. Even though that might not be your goal, maybe your goal is just to be able to take your dog on a walk without it barking at other dogs, getting great with timing is how you effectively train your pet.

You can see my video here with my cat Quiggly. It demonstrates how to charge your clicker in order to use it as a tool in training-

How to use your clicker

As always, have fun training!