User Guide
Table Of Contents
- E-Collar Technologies Premium Finger Clicker training is a positive reinforcement[1] animal training method. The system uses conditioned reinforcers, which a trainer can deliver more quickly and more precisely than primary reinforcers such as food. Th...
- The History & Science: How reward markers work - Pavlov’s Classical Conditioning
- Prepare for your training
- Phase One
- Don’t ask for a behavior when you first begin with the finger clicker: just practice the CLICK THEN REWARD. You don't need your dog to sit or look at you; however, if they are doing this, it’s ok - it’s in fact a good thing as you have their attention...
- No distractions
- Food Type
- Daily Food vs. High Value Rewards
- Treat pouch
- Supply and distribution
- Flat palm
- Be safe
- Pick times when your dog is enthusiastic
- Don’t train your dog if you’re frustrated
- Make it fun for you and your dog
- On or off leash
- Phase Two
- Training your dog with a E-Collar Premium Finger Clicker
- Sit
- Down
- Recall
- Creating Good Associations - Socialization
- Reward events
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Note: You are using the “COME” command while your dog is on its way back to
you. With enough repetition, the dog will understand “COME” means move
toward you. In time, the “COME” will be used to trigger the behavior of coming
back to you.
Creating Good Associations - Socialization
When you have powered up the Finger Clicker to be a temporary release, it will
make the dog come to us for food. If we mark (CLICK) a specific behavior, the
dog will understand that it did something right and automatically get a good
feeling
Start this exercise with your dog hungry, securely on lead, and make sure
whatever you want them to have a good association with, is not too close and
creating pressure. For example, if you want your dog to have a better
association with cars, try to have cars in the distance passing slowly, as
opposed to doing this exercise next to a busy road.
For this example, we will use cars as our subject.
When your dog looks at a car, instantly CLICK THEN REWARD. The purpose of
this is to create a good emotional feeling when your dog is in the presence of
something unfamiliar. If your dog is a couple of feet away from you, on its lead,
it should move back towards you and receive its reward. You are teaching your
dog, at the site of the unfamiliar and potentially threatening object, to feel good
and find safety in you as the trainer.
Note: If your dog has bad associations with the object you're trying to help
with, such as cars or a vacuum cleaner and its response is more heightened
(barking, whining, lunging). the CLICK THEN REWARD won’t work, as your dog
has moved past its
threshold and won’t take notice of the CLICK. For this we recommend a counter
conditioning process, along with other supporting professional training.
Reward events
A reward event is when you give your dog a nice ending following a sequence of
behaviors at the end of your training session. You can do this with a succession
of treats, give affection, play with a ball, or have fun doing some engagement
games.
Reward events can last five seconds or go on for a few minutes. Work with your
dog’s drives; if they love a ball, reward them with a ball. If they love food, give
them a handful of treats, or play some quick luring or food games.