Reward is a type of reinforcement. My understanding is that you ALWAYS follow a click with a reward.

the primary reinforcer must follow every click.

The sound of the click is a secondary reinforcer. If you click and dont give the primary reinforcer, you will weaken the secondary reinforcer(clicker sound).

You dont need to click to every behaviour, but once you have clicked, you must reward.

If you are training a dog to sit, you can click when the dog sits. Soon he will notice that this specific behaviour (sitting) triggers the click and the primary reinforcer. Then you begin a variable schedule, you will click and reward in variable periods of time, like

1 second, click/reward
4 seconds, click/ reward
2 seconds, click/ reward
1 second, click / reward, and so on


You do that until you train your dog to sit and keep sitting for variable time, until your dog has this behaviour included in his roll of behaviours. Once you can wait a long time with no click/reward, this behaviour will be difficult to disappear, will be difficult to be extinct, and you can replace the click for voice apraisal or a ball etc.


In my opinion, again, you should use click training with a working dog when he/she is a young puppy, afterwards use other drives but not food drive.

My brain hurts! Nice posts guys but I think I'll be sticking to my old faithful voice, corrections, and praise!! You can all figure out the clicker! My patience is too thin!LOL


PS.....Thin patience....not exactly a proto-typical quality of a good dog trainer now is it!!LOL <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" />

I'm sorry Jose, but you have misunderstood the purpose of reinforcing on a variable schedule. "A variable schedule of reinforcement simply means that sometimes you reinforce a behavior and sometimes you don't" Karen Pryor, Don't Shoot the Dog(formerly titled A Dog and A Dolphin). This is the most difficult part of clicker training. Learning when to click and treat, so that you can begin to phase out the reinforcements.

In agility because of the fast pace you will often click and continue on. If your dog hits the contact on an obstacle in the middle of the course, you click(or someone else does it for you). However, you don't stop to treat. You wait til you have finished the course. Then you can reinforce. Or if you are working a contact obstacle to build consistency and speed, you will run your dog over as fast as possible. When the dog hits the contact, click, and keep going so you don't encourage hesistation. You can then treat.

You clicked and the dog knows it performed the behavior correctly. You don't have to treat immediately, the dog knows the treat is coming. Jackpot reinforcement is part of this process.

Take into account that these methods of clicker training are not used on begining dogs. These are dogs that are experienced with clicker training and have been exposed to it with all types of training.

I train with a young girl who has an amazing trick she does with her Portuguese Water Dog. She calls the dog to her saying "Leia, your hair is on fire" the dog stops, drops and rolls. This is an example of clicker training and how it works bests. Building one behavior on top of another. Once the dog learned to stop, downing was then added, after downing, rolling over was taught. After every behavior was learned the girl began to work on speeding everything up. You can't treat in the middle of such an active trick.
When training simple behaviors like sit, down or stay it is very easy to treat after every click. The dog is stationary and can receive its treat without a problem. But when you begin to train behaviors that involve motion its not always possible to treat immediately after the click. Experienced dogs understand that the treat will come and learn to expect it.

Skipper

Skipper..

Isn't the dogs reward for hitting the contact zone on the obstacle going to be getting to finish his course? Sort of self rewarding on the click. what would you do if the dog didn't hit the contact zone? Would you stop? or continue?

The click means a reinforcement is coming.. with an experienced dog..that could mean the toy or treat wouldn't come for a bit. In agility I can picture the click..reinforced with the next jump or the tunnel.. but in obedience I don't think you can string clicks together and have it be clear..

Jody

In obedience you don't have to.
As for the contacts in agility it depends on where you are in the training. Often your dog will consistently be doing the contacts for a good period of time, and then he decides that tearing through the course is more important. At that point you train the contact obstacle individually, and reinforce making the contact. You can stop and go back to the obstacle at this point if it isn't done correctly. This is pretty simple and is done quickly. The problem is that an excited dog in the middle of a course sometimes gets ahead of its self and makes a mistake. So you want to reinforce the contact during the running of the course when the dog is really having problems. At this point you aren't going to stop, because of several reasons. One you might not realize the contact wasn't made. Two you might cause the dog to stress on the contact and hesitate. Causing you valuable time. Also, remember that many people have the dog wait in the contact zone to insure the dog will consistently make the contact. The problem is that it costs time. If you have a BC, you don't care because you probably need to catch up anyway, but other breeds can't spare the time for the most part. Agility is not a cookie cutter sport, and training strategies depend on the individual dog. So these are training techniques for individual situations they don't work across the board.
Clicker training allows people to be very creative with their training. Agility is a sport that calls for very creative training. I, always, train with my toolbox in mind. What can I add and what can I pull out to use. The clicker is one tool to use, and can be used in many ways. You can do so much more than teach a dog to sit with it.

Skipper

I also train with a variety of tools..the clicker being one of them.. I work in schutzhund with my shepherd.. but have recently started agility with my border collie.. who is extremely fast! Thanks for your input on those contact zones.

Jody

Real nice thread guys and gals. I have never been a big fan of the clicker, but now that my brain has stopped hurting and I've kept an open mind, I've enjoyed this very informative thread very much.

It looks like Skipper will bring a nice new perspective to the board. This is always welcome.

I think that we are all too caught up in "Clicker Training" The Topic should really be posted as "Operant Conditioning" with out applying Learning Theroy there is no clicker training. The clicker is simply used as a marker. You don't have to use a clicker you could use a whistle or a word (I use Yesss).
Dave