Q: I have been reading through all the articles on your website. I found one area of interest that is a little confusing for me. I have trained my dog using the clicker and she will do every trick on cue (with a word). When I bring my clicker out to try to teach a new behavior, my dog goes crazy and starts offering many behaviors. You state in the articles that a dog who does this doesn't know the behaviors on cue. But my girl will do all of them on cue. I am finding it hard to get her focused. Why is she going so crazy? Also, why do owners say their dog will only listen when clicker is present?
Ask the Expert: Q&A
Keeping Training Records
By Melissa Alexander on 04/01/2006Q: Should I keep records of my training sessions?
Spritzing Your Dog
By Karen Pryor on 03/01/2006Q: Some puppy kindergarten trainers use a squirt bottle to squirt water (with or without additives such as lemon juice, vinegar, Bitter Apple, etc.) to squirt a puppy if it plays too roughly with others. Do you consider this a positive and up-to-date technique? Is this a technique you personally use or endorse? And if not, what would you recommend doing instead, when one pup in class plays too roughly with another?
Crate Training
By Emma Parsons on 02/01/2006Q: My puppy loves being in his puppy pen in the TV room, which is one of those foldable metal fences, open on the top. He hates his actual crate, which is a metal cage for dogs, quite large, with plenty of room. I can get him to go quietly into it if I give him a wildly desirable treat. But once the treat is gone, so is his patience for the crate. I try to go in to release him only when he is being quiet, and I'm trying to work up the time he spends in the crate. Also I try to put him in the crate at "sleepy" times. But the crate training is so hard to do emotionally...he yowls! He is lonely and bewildered...he can't be loose in the house, because he chews and eliminates. So we are working on the house-breaking and chew-toy training. He is a whiz at clicker training though, and only 8 weeks old!
Training an "Emergency" Down
By Karen Pryor on 11/01/2005Q: How can I clicker train an emergency "down"? This seems like an important behavior to have on cue.
