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Dog training, clicker training, Australian Shepherd, dogs, puppies, pet products, obedience school |
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Clicker Training - Class One
After a one week delay due to a bad ice storm that had basically paralyzed most of the city of Topeka, Kansas, our first class was held on a Thursday night at 6:30 p.m. Puppies did not attend this first class. It was an orientation for owners only, allowing us an opportunity to introduce ourselves and gain some familiarity with what clicker training could offer and an idea of how the upcoming classes would be organized. |
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Trish Pooley, the owner of Tail Waggers and our class instructor, began by giving us an overview of clicker training and the benefits to be gained from it over more traditional training methods. I had heard Trish speak a month earlier at the Topeka Public Library and been impressed by her progressive, non-punitive methods of animal training. I liked the idea of rewarding Buddy for desired behavior rather than punishing him for behavior that was not desired and this more than anything had pushed me in the direction of clicker training. I'd gotten Buddy when he was just an eight week old ball of fluff and in the months that followed watched him become a very loving, very trusting animal. I could no more imagine actually punishing him (other than scolding in a stern voice) than I could imagine giving him away to someone else. Clicker training, with its system of rewards and positive reinforcement, was a solution that had appealed to me from the very start. |
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One exercise was conducted during this class. We were each paired with another owner and using the clickers we had been provided by Tail Waggers instructed to click each time our partner blinked their eyes. Your partner blinks and you immediately click. Basically a lesson in hand/eye coordination and I didn't do nearly as well as I would have liked to, although not so badly as to give me doubts as to my ability. The timing of the click is important in clicker training. It needs to coincide precisely with the behavior that will be rewarded so this was indeed an important exercise. |
On the whole, this first class was basically an opportunity for everyone to get introduced. Trish asked each of us in turn what our expectations were for our puppies and then told us what Tail Waggers could offer and I came away from it with a very solid sense of being in the right place.
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