Clicker Training Your New Puppy – Part 1 – Upland Bird Dog Training
my name is Ethan with standing stone
kennels on this little puppy’s name is
snap and we’re gonna show you some of
the beginning stages of training your
new puppy
we recommend using clicker training
we’ve talked about that in a couple
different videos as well as our new
puppy training basics video that’s
available on our website but we don’t
actually show the charging the clicker
process where the dog has never actually
done this before so we have this little
girl here to help us out we’ve held her
morning meal just a little bit longer so
she’s going to be excited to work with
us and as excited as she gets she’s
pretty low-key dog and then we have one
of another little puppy that we’re gonna
work with that has a little different
personality he himself is a little more
I’m going so you have the opportunity to
see maybe two different ways that a
puppy could go through the charging the
clicker process and how that might
better look with your dog at home so to
start off with we’re just going to feed
her every time she eats we’re going to
click to mark that let’s get our
attention over here this symbol we click
to mark that while she’s eating the food
we don’t need to necessarily rush this
we’re not asking for anything other than
for her to eat I’m not going to
encourage behaviors like her jumping up
on me now she’s excited to get the food
but we’re gonna more or less ignore
these behaviors and then when she’s not
doing them will feed her more so it’s
it’s using what would be considered a
least reinforcement scenario or LRS to
help her to understand that this is what
she’s going to end up getting rewarded
for and jumping up on me is not
something she’s gonna so this is what
this first session session this kid
makes you look like hey we’re just
beating her or one or two cables at a
time
clicking tomorrow every time she get
that food this is charging the clicker
we’re going up association with this
noise again she put pause at 1 so we’re
just going to take a set down but not up
on me and so we can continue to fever
she’s already exhibiting a lot of the
behaviors that we look for when we start
the clicker training process which is
typically teaching the puppy to sit
we’re not even asking her to sit but
just seeing this behavior out of her
already means when we move forward to
teaching the puppy’s how to sit using a
clicker that she’s gonna move through
that family quickly it is this simple
beat your puppy click every time they
get that report this is building a
positive association with the noise that
the clicker make that’s gonna allow us
to teach her things much much faster
down the road the clicker takes a
snapshot of exactly what the dogs doing
at that moment and helps them to
understand that that’s what was wrong a
lot of people like to use yes or good
dog or any combination of the above and
when you do that there’s the potential
that you could use a slightly different
inflection or they could read into what
the underlying tones of your voice that
may be influenced by the mood that
you’re in from that day good
again rewarding her and this is starting
to develop all kinds of different
behaviors one of which you can see she’s
not she’s not been jumping up on me one
no I’m not gonna say it’s not going to
happen again but she’s understanding
that that’s not going to get her any
extra attention
as well as we can hold step for a second
because she now we marked her sitting
we’re developing behaviors anything that
she’s doing we can mark and build on now
she’s trying to figure out how she’s
gonna get the rules jump and gentlemen
we lost focus which means that at this
stage in the game she wasn’t getting
rewarded not soon enough we’re gonna be
able to build this up later through
repetition and more training sessions
but she tried a couple different things
jumping too hot trying to get my
attention trying to get the treat and it
didn’t work so she said man it’s not
working out for me I’m just gonna go
ahead and wander out and do something
that’s a little more fun so she needs
reinforcements a little more often and
just into the game it’s also important
to keep in mind when you’re starting
this clicker training process especially
if you’re starting with a very young
puppy their focus is going to be pretty
short you’re not gonna get a 20 30 40
minute training session and you’ll be
lucky to get focus for five minutes as
we continue to charge this clicker she’s
going to start to understand that the
clicking noise itself is important and
we’re gonna round a little test here in
a minute to see if she’s starting to
understand the noise itself that the
clicker is making meaning that something
good is coming and how we’re going to do
that is just allow her to wander off a
little bit and just click the clicker
once and if we pulled her focus back to
us with just that noise then we know
that we have the chip the clicker
charged and we’re ready to start
teaching
her meal is going to be about half of
this cup I filled the cup of all the way
I’m going to feed her approximately half
of it for this training session
and then we’re gonna get on the next
puppy and use the second half of the cup
now you can do a few repetitions one
kibble at a time and then as Kat was
mentioning we don’t want to spend 20 30
40 minutes with his puppy because she
doesn’t have the attention span for that
so we can do things like a small handful
of food and then she this is gonna allow
us to get through that half a cup a
little faster making sure that she isn’t
worn out at the end always marking when
she’s eating now
positive reinforcement we’ve mentioned
this lots of different times positive 14
doesn’t always have to be treats or food
it’s just something that works really
well for most dogs because every dog
needs to eat this gives us a set time
two to three times a day with these
young puppies that we can do a very
short 5 to 10 min training for maybe 15
minutes so we’re gonna try this allow
her to wander off a little bit use the
clicker to triumph or focus back to
that’s just a to see if she’s distracted
by a camera lady if she’s actually
understanding the click noise is a good
thing
we definitely have her focus at this
point I don’t know if you guys caught
that or not but that was a poorly timed
clip I don’t really know why I clicked
at that point she was kind of jumping
and I wasn’t feeding her and I just
clicked too I have no idea so stuff like
that happens it’s not the end of the
world it’s just a matter of making sure
that you’re not doing this all the time
even professionals make mistakes once in
a while right
yes yes we do and we may not get the
clicker fully charged in this first
session um it may take a couple sessions
depending on the dog the most important
part is to make sure that they do have
an understanding before you start trying
to really put an emphasis on training
another thing that we can do is she’s
getting really good at eating food from
him is we can turn our hand into a
target she’s getting good at coming
right to our hand already and we can
start to mark that while we continue to
charge the clicker
we’re actually marking behaviors so she
comes over here to eat the food and we
mark that this can turn into a really
good way to recall our puppies down the
road but every time she sees my hand
she’s excited to come eat as we progress
in this process we will move to the
variable reinforcement that’s going to
be not getting the food or water treat
every single time she does some more
marking her touching our hand
and eating the food at the same time so
this is accomplishing two things at once
we’re marking this target training as
well as her being food now we have lost
her focus here a couple times so I think
that we’re about done with snaps
training session she’s starting to get
more interested in other things so I’m
going to give her a couple jackpots
because she doesn’t have much food left
possibly just being bigger rewards she
comes up to me and she’s gonna get that
whole handful as opposed to just single
kibble and we’ll get about 2-3 more reps
and have her session finished out here
maybe maybe not even two or three reps
and that’s something that you watch with
your puppy
is when I start getting distracted
losing focus that’s definitely when we
want to start finishing up our training
session and this will be her last
handful here this is a really good first
session we’ve got her eating this does a
lot of different things one it builds a
positive association when you as owner
and trainer which is why it’s really
good for the whole family to participate
in this activity but it also it
accomplishes two things at once we’re
giving that short training session in as
well as getting her fed two very
important things in a young person’s
life so we’re gonna switch her out now
for the next puppy all right so this guy
is a little bit more on the outgoing
side yeah I’m going to do the same thing
with him see a little more nodding this
a little more jumping and this stage of
the game a lot of people asked how do we
get our dogs not to jump on us and one
really good way to do that is ignore it
and it ignore it
yes he eventually gave it up because he
wasn’t getting any form of attention he
wasn’t getting negatively reinforced or
any physical positive attention either
yes and then once he’s doing something
that’s right it’s gonna get rewarded for
that but we’re going to start with his
charging the clicker and this will
actually be rocking second session
little rocket is his name I did one with
him last night and we should be able to
move into the development of new
behaviors as opposed to just charging
that clicker
we’re gonna do a little refresher it’s
always a good idea to do something that
the dog knows to begin with and right
now this is eating food this is really
really easy you can already see that he
has settled down a ton and is
understanding that sitting and behaving
is a really good way to get rewarded and
keep in mind we held their breakfast
meal a little bit longer so that they
were more excited about their food and
treats so that they’re more willing to
work at this point in time so he might
have been a little more exuberance for
his training session because he’s a
little bit hungrier but we also have a
ton of focus right off the bat
so we’re marking this sitting hanging a
lot we haven’t used the word and at this
point he’s getting rewarded while his
butts touching the ground but the act of
sitting is ultimately what he needs to
get courted for so that will allow you
to then transition to using the two now
I’m gonna point this out right now he
was kind of jumping on me I was more or
less ignoring him she sat down and
instantly marked that and rewarded him
and he saw that that’s what I’m gonna
get detention for
not the jumping and it’s very much the
same with children as a lot more people
would be experienced in just in the fact
that sometimes acting out is the form of
attention that they think they need so
they’re trying to get your attention in
any way possible they don’t necessarily
know how to do that so jumping on you is
one way that they try rock it she’s
trying for the jumping again he’s on my
hand alive but you know wait a second
marking when he sat down so he’s gonna
figure out pretty quick that the sitting
aspect of things in behaving is how he’s
gonna get rewarded in attention not the
jumping on us this can carry over for
counter surfing when you’re in the
kitchen with your dog if your dog is
constantly jumping up on the counters to
see what you’re doing or jumping up on
you especially when you’re getting
dinner ready so we can also use that LRS
soon and I’ll be in the kitchen so when
you got you don’t get on the covers or
jumping up on you if you ignore that and
then they do behavior that we do want
which would be sitting or standing
nicely or even laying down patiently in
the kitchen then they can get rewarded
for that behavior again he’s trying for
the jumping so even though he’s sitting
we weren’t
rewarding and marking that behavior
because there was also barking involved
yeah
held up for just a second quit marking
because even though it’s kind of cute we
don’t really want to encourage and
reward the barking behavior because it
can become a very annoying game if your
puppy barks and barks and barks
constantly and they can because that’s
the way that they’re gonna get attention
and rewarded you have to ask yourself
one question when you got a new little
puppy is this something that I’m gonna
be okay with when my dog is full-grown
fifty sixty pounds and the answer to
that is yes and it’s okay for them to do
it now the answer to that is no we’re
not going to want him barking everything
when you look an adult dog so we’re not
going to reward that or allow that it’s
okay to talk to them and be encouraging
but we want the clicker itself to be the
key shoe
Marketing behaviors and developing what
we’re looking for other puppies so what
Ethan did there was got him to move his
feet a little bit and exhibit the
behavior of sitting again because he was
just sitting and getting rewarded
rewarded rewarded for a while there and
we want him to understand that we’re
going to want the behavior of sittings
actual standing up to sitting down
behavior to be the behavior we’ll be
looking for and these are early stages
in the game it’s a good idea to work on
one trick or one behavior at a time we
don’t want to start asking him to lay
down or try and get him to come to us
and sit and do all these different
things this is there’s only second
session of working on these obedience
things so we want to try and keep that
to working on one thing it’s gonna make
a lot easier for him to understand how
to and again just like snap started to
lose a little bit of focus we’re
starting to see a little loss of focus
with rocket and then sometimes be an
indication gotta say hi to me yeah that
can sometimes be an indication that the
session should finish fairly quickly so
that we can end the session on a
positive note with his focus yeah we’ll
do a few more reps here and then we’ll
call that good and I will give
one more big jackpot basically good I
think we can do it in about three more
reps and we’ll call them good for him we
started again with a single kibble at a
time and then we’re going to move
through to a couple big handfuls to
finish this out Barbara said we need
better treats yes and you can definitely
find treats that your dog or puppy is a
lot more interested in working for but
because we held his meal until his
training session
he’s definitely willing to work because
he’s hungry and yes we are only using
his kibble as his reward in his treats
but we also could pull out soft treat
things like that
something to keep in mind though when
you are doing your clicker training
sessions and charging the clicker we
want something that the puppy is going
to be able to eat fairly quickly so
don’t get real big milk phones that are
going to take him you know almost three
minutes to eat in general we want him to
be able to eat fairly quickly his treat
so that she doesn’t lose focus that we
can continue the training session you
can see that little hand gesture to
helps draws attention up high and then
naturally his butt’s can try and move
towards the ground makes it a little
easier for them to naturally move into
that sitting position and in case anyone
wants to ask or hasn’t asked all right
yes we teach our pointing dogs to sit as
long as they understand the difference
between sit and low and you don’t
confuse it at training it’s very easy
for the dogs to understand both as well
as when we use our dogs for versatility
both demonic duck hunting upland hunting
they have to are definitely easier for
them to be
sit by me on a stool while we’re dove
hunting and then whoa in the field on
birds knowing the difference between the
two is is the most important part of
that I think we’re definitely done with
these sessions with little tooth little
puppies keeping this short and simple is
is the best way to do it um we will
probably be doing more videos
demonstrating his progress and her
progress as we go stay tuned for more
thanks guys
you
