If you haven’t already done so, then in this lesson we are going to be starting clicker training with our animals. In lesson 4 we discussed practicing your timing. We talked about how it was important that the food followed the click. The other highly important element was that the hand with the food in it didn’t move until after the click sound. Watch this lessons video and learn how to start implementing this with your animal.
So hopefully you have successfully started clicker training with your animal. From their perspective, a new reinforcer has just entered their world. The once neutral clicking device now means great and wonderful things. Your journey as a clicker trainer has begun. An important thing to watch when starting clicker training is that your animal understands that the clicker has value. We want them to know that every time they hear “CLICK” they are guaranteed food. Over time really good animal trainers develop hypersensitivity to body language. I want you to start practicing this super important skill now. You are going to start looking for changes in your animal’s body language that demonstrate understanding. Like the cat in this lessons video, these might be exaggerated movements. Or they might be very slight like the Swiss shepherd dogs head. If you are sure that your animal understands the click, great. We will move onto the next step – click through to lesson number 6 and we will talk about a metaphorical contract that you have just signed with your animal.