I'm going to be detailed here because then people will probably be more able to help, so sorry in advance for the long text. Also, sorry for any mispelling, I'm not english.
I've had dogs for the past 16 years, two Portuguese water dogs (that died of old age this past year) and a now 8 year old cocker mix. When I got these dogs I was raising children, didn't have much time or energy, and they were never properly trained, but still they were fine inteligent reliable dogs that did as were told on an instinctive basis. I now have a 5 months old puppy, Sara, a Cão da Serra de Aires / Portuguese Sheepdog (they look like smaller Briards), and this one I wanted to really train well from the start. So then I find out that the nearest obedience school is 35 km away. Go there, and it's really old fashioned training, choke collars, punitive reinforcement. Not for me and my pup. So I start reading everything I can get, surf the net, and begin training her myself. At first I didn't know if I could do it, but it's going surprisingly well. Sara is very inteligent and learns quickly, and happyly doesn't seem to have any negative behaviours (apart from normal puppy stuff, still likes to jump a bit on me when excited but is getting much better). I train with positive reinforcement, use treats and praise.
I came across clicker training while doing this net surfing, and in the past 3 months came from "I've never heard of this" to "I would like to give this a try". It means learning clicker training at the same time I'm training her, all by myself. I'm not even sure if there's someone teaching it in Portugal, and for sure there's no one near where I live. I learn quickly and so does Sara, so I think we can do it, but would like some tips. She already knows a lot (for a 5 months old puppy trained by an unexperienced trainer) and I don't know if I should introduce the clicker with comands she already knows or with something brand new. Also, how to make the dog understand that this is the new training way? What problems generaly arise from switching training methods?
For what she already knows, as it might be helpfull with your tips: sit, down, stay (I've noticed that she may break a stay to follow me but has never broken it to go do something else), come, touch (the hand, we haven't begun with the stick yet), leave it (great inside, good outside if I say the comand BEFORE she actually has the disgusting thing in her mouth), look (is begining to get it), shake hands (this was funny, I sat on the floor with her sitting in front of me and kept thinking of ways to make her understand the idea while thinking "this would be much easier with a clicker" but she actually got it in 5 minutes), go to bed, loose leach (she's getting very good at this) and heel while of leach (she gets it but I'm not asking for long stretches yet). Although she knows these comands, some are very basic yet and need a lot of work and upgrading the dificulty. So how do I work with a learned behaviour with the clicker?
I guess that my main question is this: considering that I'm a beginner self-teached trainer should I just leave clickers alone, as it would be yet another new thing to learn, or are there good chances of success with my limitations?
Thanks in advance for any answers.
