Clicker Training

written by Kerry Bradbury

Targeting

This is the practice of teaching a dog to make contact with a certain, movable object which, once this has been learned can be used to teach the dog many new behaviours. The method is used a lot in clicker training and is extremely versatile.

Anything can be used as a target. Many people use a simple straight piece of wood, similar to a riding crop or walking stick (although perhaps lighter), which is called a ‘target stick’. You can use anything as a target however, including your own hand or foot. The exercise you were given to do in Chapter 2 was an example of targeting and should have shown you just how easy it is to train your dog in this way.

To start

What makes targeting easy to teach is that there is a definite something - item or point - that your dog can focus on. To teach your dog to target something, first wave it around near your dog. He will probably go over to sniff or even try to hold it. As soon as he shows interest, click & treat. You should aim to teach your dog to simply bump it with his nose. This way you can get him to follow the target and change positions just so that he can keep his nose near it.

Some dogs will immediately sniff and so you can go straight for clicking the nose bumping. Other dogs may do different things first and so you would need to gradually build towards this. Shaping the dog to sniff a target stick may go like this:

1	Dog looks towards the stick - click & treat. Few repetitions
2	Dog moves towards the stick - click & treat. Few repetitions. Make the dog work hard by moving the stick around.
3	Dog tries to take hold of stick - click & treat
4	Dog sniffs stick. To discourage the dog from holding the stick perhaps hold it slightly out of reach, or time the click for just before he puts his teeth on it.
5	Once he is sniffing the stick for a click, you should make him work harder by holding the stick in different positions relative to him and to yourself.

He now understands that to get a click & treat he has to seek out the stick and touch it. The same process applies whatever you want the dog to target.

What can you teach using targeting

Jumping.

To teach a dog to jump something you can use the stick. Hold the stick and allow him to follow it over a low jump - using the clicker when he bumps the stick. You could also place the stick in the ground and teach the dog to jump over the jump away from you to the target. Do this by holding your dog close to a low jump on the opposite side to the target stick in the ground. Release your dog and click and treat after he has gone over the jump and bumped the target. Remember it is bumping the target stick that you are clicking at the moment - the jump is incidental. Once your dog is confidently going over the low jump to the target you can gradually begin to raise the height of the jump. If he goes under or around, withhold the click & treat and try again. Once your dog is completing the jump to your satisfaction you can add a command. Once your dog is jumping on the command, you will no longer need the target stick and will be able to click the jumping itself.

Teaching jumps in this fashion is a good basis for competition agility where dogs have to learn to work away from their handlers.

Heelwork.

A target stick can be useful when teaching walking on a loose lead - see previous section. It gives the dog a definite right / not right situation. He will learn if he touches the stick he will get a click & treat and if he doesn’t he will be ignored. This is helpful to the dog because it is less general than just being near the owner. It is also a good guide for the less experienced clicker trainer of exactly when to click. Hold the stick on the side you would like your dog to walk and click when he makes contact with the stick. You can use targeting the stick as your signal to click as opposed to the dog just being beside you. Once you have started with the target stick continue as before with walking on the lead, but use touching the stick as a signal to click.

Once the dog has the idea that being beside you and touching the stick is what earns a click & treat you can begin to phase out the stick. Hold the stick shorter so that as your dog is almost touching it you click. Repeat this gradually clicking the dog more for being near you and the stick and less for actually making contact. In this way the stick becomes less of a focus than the handler.

Competition style heelwork is an ideal exercise to teach using targeting. Because it is important for the dog to maintain a steady position in relation to the handler, preferably in close contact, the dog should be taught to target the owner.

To teach this the first aim is to get your dog touching you, the owners leg, or hip (depending on the size of the dog) with his nose or face. Click & treat as soon as contact is made.

To get your dog really understanding that the contact is the behaviour that is required, always move away from him each time he earns a click. This way he has to try hard to make the contact. You may need to encourage your dog initially by patting your leg, or pushing gently against him to get counter pressure. Once you have repeated this 50 - 100 times you should have a dog that is quite insistent about touching you. You can then go for maintaining the behaviour by holding off on the click for a second. You may choose to teach this as a static exercise, or as a moving one. This will depend on your dog and how happy he is to maintain contact while you are moving. Either way, you can gradually build up the time that your dog will remain touching you.

If you choose to teach it static you must then begin to introduce movement. You may find that your dog will break the contact as soon as you begin to move. Holding a lure near to your dog after the initial contact may help to get the idea through to him.

Once your dog will walk with you and maintain contact you can introduce your command or signal. As with loose lead walking, you should go back to clicking the behaviour immediately when you first introduce the signal, gradually building back up the time between signal and click.

You can then begin to proof your new behaviour and improve on it as you wish.

Send-away.

Teaching a dog to move away from the owner becomes simpler for the dog to understand if they have something to aim for. You can use the target stick for this, or teach them to target a mark on the grass or a certain object (such as their own bed).

A send-away has many uses whether it be to send a dog to bed, get them to give you more space at dinner time, send them to a certain point for competition purposes or the numerous other reasons we may want our dog to go away from us.

Whatever you are using for a target introduce this as explained earlier. Next build up the distance between yourself and the target gradually, waiting each time for the dog to go back to the target to get his click. Do not worry about the fact that your dog will probably instantly rush back to you for his treat. Once you have built up the distance you can then work on teaching him to stay away longer. Don’t increase the distance in too large a step each time. Take it slowly and remember that if your dog looses confidence then go back a step or two.

This is a behaviour that when taught outside, a better reward than food may be a toy. This is because you can throw the toy after the click and the reward is gained still away from you. As long as your dog will bring the toy back, this is an alternative reward for you to consider.

Once your dog is happily going to the target from various distances and angles, you can then begin to teach him to hold that position (if that is what you require). Begin to hold off on the click and gradually teach him to stay with the target longer.

If you are teaching an obedience send-away, for example, you will probably want the dog to lie down when he gets there. You can now incorporate that bit by now not rewarding your dog simply for touching the target but waiting and rewarding a down position. You may need to lure this once or twice to start with if your dog does not think about lying down, or perhaps lower the target stick so that your dog finds it more comfortable to lie down to touch it. At this stage you should go back to being near to the target yourself and once you have achieved this new part of the behaviour, you can build distance back again.

Only introduce the verbal signal when you have the complete behaviour you require.

Once you have introduced the command you can begin to fade the target. In some cases this is not necessary (e.g. when teaching a dog to go to his bed, the bed is the target but is always going to be there anyway). If it is necessary then you should gradually make the target smaller and smaller, or move it farther away, until finally the dog will just keep going until the click is given (or other ‘stop now’ signal you may choose to introduce).

Another factor to consider is whether your dog sees the target being placed. If he does then this may put you at a disadvantage if there is a time you need to ask him to send-away to an unknown target. To prepare him for this proof him to send-away to an unseen target. Vary training so that sometimes he sees it but perhaps the distance is greater, and sometimes he doesn’t but perhaps it is only over a very short distance.

Target sticks can also be used to teach the first stages of many behaviours. For example, it may be a useful aid to teaching "down" for a person who has a bad back and is unable to lure the down position easily. It can be used to teach a dog to turn in a circle, or change direction. It can also be used as a pointer for cats in the same way (try teaching your cat to jump from one surface to another, or over a low jump). Once you have the beginnings of a behaviour you can use the target stick less & less, allowing the dog to figure out what is required from that stage onwards.