Your dog does a million cute things every day, if you look closely. Yoga stretches, head tilts, lip smacking, barking, you name it. Let’s turn one of them into a trick using clicker training! Here’s how:
Watch your dog for a few minutes and see if something cute shows up. If nothing “cute” shows up, see if there’s just some behavior you can notice, like a glance to the side or a paw movement. It will give you practice doing this kind of training, and you can work on the cute stuff later.
Once you know what you want (or even before that) get a bag of treats and a clicker and watch your dog some more. Sit in a comfy chair and just wait.
When that cute behavior shows up, click and treat it! Wait again. Click/treat when you see it again. Repeat for a few minutes, then give yourself, and your dog, a break. Try again later.
Repeat the above until your dog starts to offer the behavior more and more, say 10-15 times per minute. Move to another spot in the house and do it again. Try it again, but this time, do it standing up.
Now you can start to name the behavior. Just before she does that cute thing, say the cue, then click and treat when she does it. From this point on, only click/treat if you’ve said the cue first. The cue becomes her invitation to do the Cute Thing.
After several repetitions of saying the cue and then click/treating, wait for a few seconds. She will do the Cute Thing. DO NOT CLICK. Just wait until she pauses, as if to say, “But I did the Cute Thing, why are you not paying me?” At that point, say your cue (giving her a chance to earn food doing the Cute Thing is now a reinforcement for her pausing).
She will soon do the Cute Thing, not because you asked, but because it’s gotten her so many treats. Click and treat. Repeat the above in several new places. Mix in other cues after a while, and voila, you’ve got it!
