history of clicker training

A brief history of clicker dog training and common misconceptions

There is a lot of scientific and serious research gone into clicker or marker training.

Clicker training is the process of training an animal using a clicker as a marker for behavior that will earn positive reinforcement.

It is a technology derived from the study of operant conditioning in behavior analysis. The Russian scientist Pavlov is famous for discovering operant conditioning with his dogs. He rang a bell every time he fed his dogs noticing that they started to salivate on the production of food. Eventually the dogs would salivate on hearing the bell only.

Properly applied the clicker is only used during the acquisition phase of training a new behavior. Once the behavior is sufficiently reliable a ‘cue’ is added such as a verbal ‘sit’ or ‘stay’ or a visual hand signal. At this point the clicker is no longer needed for this behavior and just the cue is necessary.

American psychologist B. F. Skinner studied operant conditioning and then

identified and described the principles of operant conditioning but it was Marian and Keller Breland, two of Skinner’s first students, who saw the possibilities for animal training as a business.

After participating as research students with Skinner in pigeon behavior and training projects during World War II, the Brelands left graduate school and formed the first company to intentionally use operant conditioning, Animal Behavior Enterprises (ABE). They created the first free-flying bird shows and a host of commercial animal exhibits, from piglet races to chickens playing tic-tac-toe.

One of the challenges in training an animal is communicating exactly when the animal has done the behavior that the handler is attempting to reinforce. As a simple example, consider teaching a dog to turn in a circle (spin). At the instant that the dog completes the turn, the handler must let the dog know that he has done the correct thing. However, the traditional "good dog!" takes so long to say that he might already have moved on to some other behavior and by the time he realizes he is being praised, he might be sitting and scratching or sniffing his backside. The clicker allows for precise timing and clear communication about what specific behavior is being reinforced and enables the trainer to teach complex and difficult skills to the animal without the use of force or punishment.

At least one study has shown that the clicker can reduce training time by 1/3.

As this type of training was practiced and improved upon, it became apparent that the variability of the human voice and its presence during all activities make it a less than perfect tool for marking behavior. Besides the imprecision in timing, using the trainer's voice for feedback means that the actual sounds for feedback will vary. A handler's voice, pronunciation, tone, loudness, and emphasis may change even during the same training session. The Clicker "click" sound avoids variations in sound. Many trainers opt to use clickers for training that requires precision and continue to use their voices in the form of praise.

Tasks learned with the clicker are retained even years after the fact and with no additional practice after the initial learning has taken place. This is probably due to the fact that the animal participates fully in the learning process and applies itself to it, learning by trial and error rather than acting out of habit or a momentary response to a situation. Clicker–trained animals become great problem–solvers, develop confidence, and perform their work enthusiastically. This retention of learning is present in positive reinforcement training but does not happen with any regularity with correction-based training.

The marker can be any signal that the animal can perceive, so long as the signal is brief (to prevent the problem of imprecise timing) and consistent (to prevent the problem of variations that may confuse the animal).

Common Myths

There are several common misconceptions about clicker training.

-Myth 1:

"The dog will never perform the behavior without the clicker". The clicker should be used to identify correct behavior during training not to maintain behavior once the behavior has been learned. Once a behavior is performed each time the animal hears a specific cue as mentioned earlier – voice command or hand signal the clicker may be discontinued.

-Myth 2:

"Dogs will become distracted by the clicks of other trainers in a class or public setting". This is very short-lived problem. Participants in clicker classes find that dogs are easily able to discriminate that only the clicks from their handler pay off. Animals in learning situations soon ignore clicks that don’t pay off.

-Myth 3:

"Dogs become fat with clicker training because they get too many treats". There are 2 solutions to this problem - either use a portion of the dog's regular diet as the training treats or use reinforcers other than food. A "reinforcer" is anything the animal is willing to work for in the current situation. Common non-food reinforcers include toys, attention, and the opportunity to do something the dog wants. For example, for a dog who wants to go for a walk, putting on the leash can reinforce sitting.

-Myth 4:

"You can't clicker train in noisy environments". This can be a challenge but starting your clicker training in quiet environments first then adding more distractions and noise will help to keep your dog focused

-Myth 5:

A dog may grow into adulthood and only listen and obey if the owner is carrying treats. If the owner does not have treats it may be the case that the dog is distracted and paying attention to whomever may have treats and food rewards available. This is actually a potential problem with the "Lure Reward" method of training where food is visible. In clicker training the food should not be visible to the animals until the behavior is completed. This could also happen when the trainer uses only one type of reinforcer. If the trainer uses only food, then the dog clearly learns that if food isn't present, then there can be no reinforcement. This is a trainer error. The solution is to use a variety of types of reinforcers and to hold training sessions where food isn't present.

So there we have it, a brief history of the clicker training method plus a few common myths solved.

Clicker dog training really does work all you need are the right tools and guidance.