What is clicker training?

Clicker training is a method of training animals, mainly dogs. It was first discovered and tested on rats, which was a success, so scientists began using it on dolphins and pigeons, and then later on dogs. It is called “Clicker Training” because the tool used is a “Clicker”, which sounds like a click when you push it, this marks for the training animal if it has done well or not. This technique is used to train police K9 units, but also the normal “house dog”.

BF Skinner

BF Skinner was an American psychologist, and it was he who first identified this technology and described it to his students. However, Skinner did not begin to use this technique, it was two of his first students, Marian and Keller Breland, who first saw the possibilities of training animals.

In World War II, Mr. and Mrs. Breland founded a company called “Animal Behavior Enterprises”, where they began training pigeons. Most of the bird shows at that time were with birds that were not allowed to fly wherever they wanted, because if they had been allowed, they would just fly. Although there was an exception, the Brelands. They used the “clicker training” method, to be able to control where the birds would fly, so they were the first in the world to have a free-flying bird show.

Keller Breland died in 1965, so Marian married a dolphin scientist who works for the navy named Bob Bailey, who joined Marian in her research work. They began to train other animals, such as dolphins, whom they learned to locate their trainers many miles offshore, in the sea. They also trained different species of birds, such as crows, who were taught to carry a camera, the lasers were directed to fly to whatever specific window the trainer wanted and take pictures of whatever the trainer wanted. Another example is seagulls, who were taught how to locate swimmers and could even locate life rafts far from shore.

Clicker training: advantages and disadvantages

Clicker Training Advantages

Clicker training is all about letting your animal know when it has done well, so that the animal knows that this is the exact behavior that is right or good. For example, if you are teaching your dog to sit, at the exact moment he sits down, you need to know that he has done well. If you are yelling “Good dog!” When the dog hears that, he may have changed his behavior, such as standing up again or lying on the ground, which he will then think is the correct behavior. Also, the “Clicker” got the exact same shade, every time. If you are yelling “good dog!” ten times, your voice will not have the same pitch every time, so it will take your dog even longer to understand that your tone of voice doesn’t matter, but he also has to understand that when you say “Bad dog!”, he has done it wrong or wrong.

However, with the clicker it is much easier, since the “Clicker” can make any sound that you want, that the animal can understand, and sounds that are clear. However, it is not only the dogs that are being trained, and with other animals there are often other training devices, such as dolphins that normally have a whistle, and Goldfishes does not even have a sound, normally it is a flashlight.

Disadvantages of clicker training

You get so hooked and you will never stop training your dog and your dog will never stop training. But that’s not a disadvantage if you have all the time in the world.

In general, clicker training is a more accurate and effective dog training method than correction-based dog training.