Clicker Training for Dogs

New research on clicker dog training
Training dogs is easier than some think and harder than others ever imagine. There is a new study published June, 2008 in Applied Animal Behavior Science by a Danish group that showed training laboratory Beagles once a week was more successful than training them five times a week. What Iben Meyer and Jan Ladewig from the University of Copenhagen showed was that the optimum clicker training schedule for laboratory Beagles was weekly rather than daily for 5 days. Meyer and Ladewig showed that dogs trained once a week learned more quickly and had higher success rates at different steps of the clicker training exercises.

More questions than answers for clicker training
This new study, which is called "The relationship between number of training sessions per week and learning in dogs” left me with these unanswered questions:

• Did the Beagles feel anxious around humans so that the less often the humans trained them the happier the dogs were?
• Do Beagles bred to be quiescent and calm have different learning patterns than dogs bred to be active and mentally alert, such as the Border Collie, field Labrador Retriever, or German Shepherd?
• Were the dogs able to watch and learn from others that were being clicker trained?

Flawed clicker training research
I suspect this research is flawed because the behaviorists began with dogs not bred for intelligence and learning, but for the ability to remain quiet and caged. Their results aren’t applicable to the intelligent, active dogs I enjoy working with.

My approach to clicker dog training
My experience with dog training has shown me that:

1. Frequent, short sessions are ideal.
2. Dogs begin learning as soon as they can smell, see, and hear and can begin training shortly after birth. It’s just that it takes longer for the muscles to develop so the puppy can show us what it knows.
3. Many dogs are mentally active at some times of the day and are distracted at other times, so that time of the day and feeding schedule influence learning.
4. Most dogs let the family know when they want to be active and learn.
5. The size and quality of the reward—whether food or play time—significantly affects learning.

What do you think about dog training?
What do you think is important when clicker training dogs?

I welcome your comments.