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Common myths about clickers and positive reinforcement training:

• But the dog eventually has to know the bottom line, and who’s boss:  This method is based upon scientifically proven learning theory that applies to all animals, no matter what instinctive social system a species of animal has.  This method has been used successfully to train animals from hermit crabs, fish, chickens, and mice (remember the movie “Mouse Hunt”?), to killer whales, lions, panthers and grizzly bears.  Can you imagine showing a killer whale “who’s boss”?   Or, a hermit crab, for that matter?  Successful training does depend on knowing the basic innate behaviour of a species and using it to advantage, but success does not depend upon inserting yourself into another species’s social hierarchy with misconceptions about their dominance system.

• I can’t have food with me all the time!!  ANSWER 1:  It’s not about food. It’s about controlling the dog’s reinforcements and having them all come through you.  You are the gatekeeper (credit to Rachel Sanders).  You have a lot of reinforcements to control and food is only one.  Reinforcements include:  food (and different kinds of food), toys (and different kinds of toys), access to walks, access to the sofa, access to the garden, access to YOU…anything and everything that the dog wants can be a reinforcement.  And they should all be meted out by you in a way that reinforces desirable behaviours in your dog.    ANSWER 2.  So, why can’t you have food on you all the time?  I walk around always with some kibble in a pocket. I have stashes of kibble in little plastic containers all around the house.  When I go for a walk, I need a …coat, shoes, leashes for the dogs, poop bags…so what’s the big deal about remembering to grab a handful of kibble and cram in my pocket or in my pack with the poop bags? Or hey, here’s an idea make use of environmental reinforcers/life rewards!

• I can’t manage the clicker, food, leash, and dog all at the same time:  ANSWER 1:  It’s not about a little plastic box that makes a noise any more than it’s about food.  The longer I train with this method, the less I use the clicker.  I use the clicker only for teaching a new behaviour and primarily for the beginning part of the learning curve.  The clicker is really only a marker for a desired behaviour. The reinforcement strategy is the big picture and the event marker is a little piece of it.  This method is a mindset about how to interact and communicate with your dog.  The clicker is a tool that you use only under some circumstances.  That is why the label of “clicker training” is misleading.    ANSWER 2:  As Bob Bailey and others have explained, clicker training is a mechanical skill.  So is jerking on the leash.  In fact,  the jerk-and-praise (or Koehler) method is at least as difficult to master correctly as the clicker, and you can do a lot more damage with that method if done poorly than using a clicker ineptly.   I have found that the timing and insight required to use jerk-and-praise is so difficult to master than very few people can do it correctly, as Koehler (who was a master trainer) intended.   Rather, clicker training is forgiving in that it can’t cause physical harm or long term adverse effects as positive punishment can.

• But eventually I’ll want to dispense with the food, toys, or whatever and that’s not possible with this method:  So, you think clicker training is DIFFERENT in this way than other methods?  Your relationship with your dog and your dog’s behaviour is a reflection of all the reinforcement history that has gone before it, no matter which training method you use.  Variants of this excuse include statements like “I can’t take a clicker in the ring with me”  So I’d like to see what happens if you pop your dog with the leash in the ring right in front of the judge.  I would rather go into a ring with a strong history of positive reinforcement than of negative reinforcement.  Another amusing variant was presented to me on a herding list, something along the lines of not wanting to face off a Brahma bull with a dog that needed a hot dog to work.  First of all, I wouldn’t want to face off a Brahma bull with nothing but a dog, and I wouldn’t really wish that on a dog anyway.  Second, the statement shows the deep misunderstanding of what constitutes a reinforcement for a dog.  A dog bred with strong prey drive to hunt or herd would find the presence of prey or stock to be so infinitely more reinforcing than a piece of measly food that the use of food makes no sense whatsoever in that training context.  Again, it’s not about food, it’s about managing the dog’s reinforcements and the dog alone decides what those are.

• Clicker training is a fad; it’ll be gone soon enough:  This method of training is a technological breakthrough, like fire, the wheel, the horseless carriage, electricity, air travel.  I’m personally happy to move forward to the 21st century and not stay stuck in the medieval ages.

This article has been published with the kind permission of Catherine Toft @ R + Dog Training