There are many Labrador owners and trainers I know who claim to use Clicker Training to train their dogs with half baked knowledge of what Clicker Training is all about. Since they have a skewed knowledge about this powerful training method they are unable reap the actual rewards of Clicker training.
What is clicker training anyway? It is a powerful, revolutionary, highly effective and humane way to train animals using positive reinforcement – i.e. clicking and rewarding the desired behaviors and ignoring the undesired ones. This can be the shortest definition of Clicker Training that I can give. If you want a more detailed description you can check out – Karen Pryor’s (who showed the awesomeness of clicker training method to the world and made it a popular dog training method) article –– What is Clicker Training? or one of my posts – Positive Reinforcement Training to tackle all dog behavior problems. Or you can watch this informative video !
Many dog trainers who claim to clicker train their dogs do indeed ‘click and treat’ their dogs for desired behaviors. But it just ends there. They don’t follow the next critical aspect of Clicker Training or positive reinforcement training, i.e. ignoring the bad behaviors. Instead they go back to their traditional method and try to correct their dog’s bad behaviors as usual – that’s nothing but negative reinforcement - which makes clicker training ineffective. Then it is better to continue with the less effective traditional training method than mixing up both.
Please read some of the great benefits of training your Labrador with Clicker Training
- Happy and Confident Dog - Since you are ignoring the bad behavior and rewarding the desired ones, you will get a happy and confident dog that’s not scared of you anymore and won’t live in constant fear that you might yell, smack or shout at him for doing something. Instead the dog will be happier to get trained with you since you are reinforcing the behaviors that the dog offers voluntarily. This brings about a healthy relationship between you and the dog. Your dog will be absolutely healthy both mentally and physically with this training method.
- No Dependence on Rewards For Ever - You can wean off the clicker and treat gradually and associate each behavior with a cue once the dog is fully trained. Unlike the traditional training method - where the trainer has to constantly remind the dog with an aversive method even after the dog learns the technique – you have to depend on reinforcers (clicking and treating) only until the dog is fully trained.
- Only Desired Behavior Is Reinforced - In other reward based training – that doesn’t use a clicker - there are chances of reinforcing a wrong behavior where as with a clicker you can precisely reinforce a desired behavior. This will improve the efficiency of the training and the dog learns the behaviors pretty quickly.
- Easy To Teach New Techniques - Since the dog is always willing and happy to get trained you can easily teach new techniques and behaviors to your dog pretty quickly and easily.
- You Will Be Happy & Relaxed - You will always be happy, relaxed and positive while you are training your dog using clicker training as you are only focusing and reinforcing the good behaviors of your dog. Once you get the hang of clicker training you will also love to train your dog as much as it does.
- Versatile Training Method - Clicker training can be used to train not just Labrador retrievers or other breeds but literally every animal – right from a mouse to a potentially dangerous killer whale.
The benefits just don’t end here! And, a mere article or a book would be insufficient to explain the awesome powers of clicker training. You will only start exploring it’s potential and possibilities once you actually put it into practice. And I can assure you that with clicker training method your Labrador will not just love the training sessions but also transform into a happy, confident and well behaved companion for you through out its life time.
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