Dogs And Teaching The Place Command With A Clicker

Here is an example of using a clicker to teach the Place command (or some would say "cue"). This is just a first step (MORE) 

There is a lot more to be learned from clicker training than what you see. I can use this task, as demonstrated, as an object lesson to teach my students much bigger and more profound concepts. Can you guess the bigger picture? 

Clicker training advocates have typically overpromised and underdelivered. They refer to laboratory experiments since that is most of what is written on these topics. They are missing the bigger picture. While the above exercise is interesting, to get to advanced level handling, and high level performance from dogs, students need to master many concepts and be able to apply them with their dogs. It isn't just a rat or pigeon in a box.

Teaching individual tasks with a clicker is small potatoes. If that is where you are at, that is a good beginning, but there is more for you to figure out. Mechanical understanding of Operant Conditioning is for beginners, but is not a demonstration of your mastery of the bigger concepts.

Homework for this week: puzzle and ruminate upon all I explained and what you saw today with your dog. Watch that video about 100 times. Can you figure out more than the obvious of the dog being clicked for being on the dog bed?

Plan accordingly.