Beginning
Clicker
Retrieving
Go find
ShakeHand
People
Health
Problems
News
Christine read a book on a method of training called Click and Treat (C&T). She tried it out on Jabberwocky, my 10-year-old Alaskan Husky pal. He and Christine had been together for a long time before I came along. JW caught on pretty quickly.
Once familiar with the procedure, Christine began the training process with me. It was relatively simple. Christine made a click sound with a hand-held clicker device. It was a meaningless sound at first.
After I had gotten used to the sound she combined the click with a reward of a doggie treat. We repeated this delicious training often. Since I am so smart I quickly saw the correlation between a click sound and receiving a treat.
But as soon as I got used to being showered with doggie goodies it all changed again. Christine put her hand in front of my nose. I sniffed at it to see if it perhaps contained a treat. I heard a click and then received one.
Okay, sniff the hand, hear a click and get a reward. We practised this many times until I came to understand that Christine expected me to perform something before I would hear the click sound. The response was proof that my behavior was correct.
Soon I was learning things like sitting and laying by hand signals. And the command come here was taught to me without any chaotic shouting.
Christine stepped back away from me and I followed her immediately. I heard the click and knew this was the wished-for response. (I learned this particular command quickly because I am very fearful of loosing Christine, the safe home and delicious food.)
After a while she would delay the click so that I would have to stay very close to her side. I received the jackpot reward for that one. Sometimes, Christine gives me a lot of treats all at once when she thinks I have made a major achievement. Yummy! Occasionally I try to take my own jackpot from Christine’s table, but she tells me this is stealing:-)
Now I can sit, lay, sit at a distance, come here, heel, stay and walk perfectly on a leash. I have also learned two more great tricks: retrieving and key searching.
