Teach Your Dog to Sit

Difficulty: Easy
Prerequisite: None
Items Needed: Clicker, Treats

With your clicker ready, wait for your dog to sit on his own. This part of the training session is fun for dogs, it's like a game to them. They have to figure out what to do in order to get the treat. They might spin around, lay down, come up and nudge you—whatever he does, just ignore him until he sits. When he does this immediately click and treat. The first treat should be a generous one, enough to get him motivated for more.

Keep on waiting until he sits again. Whenever he sits, click and treat. By this time it is normal for a dog to get frustrated since he often can't remember why he got the treat the first time and doesn't understand why he isn't getting one now (see Teaching Trouble below).

Keep clicking and treating when he sits. Soon a light will come on in the little guy's brain: "If I sit, I'll get a treat!" He'll start doing it more. When your dog gets to this stage of the training process, start saying the word "Sit" whenever you click. This will reinforce the command with his action.

Then, tell your dog to sit—he should do it right away. As soon as he does, give him a jackpot and a good petting for a job well done.

Step 1: Wait until he sits down on his own. Click and treat.
Step 2: Repeat several times.
Step 3: Say Sit as soon as he sits. Click and treat.
Step 4: Repeat several times.
Step 5: Say Sit. If he sits, click and give him a jackpot. If he does not, return to Step 4.

Teach Your Dog Its Name

Difficulty: Easy
Prerequisite: None
Items Needed: Clicker, Treats

After teaching your dog to respond to the clicker, you are now ready to use it to teach him many tricks and commands. Throughout the site, we demonstrate how the clicker can be used for both basic commands and more advanced tricks. If you want a well trained dog, one of the first things you need to teach is the most basic of commands: his name.

Basically, you want to "catch" good behavior with the clicker. What this means is that you want to train your dog that whenever you click (which means he has done something good.) The way we train the dog to respond to the clicker is simply by clicking and immediately treating the dog. It won't take your dog long to understand that whenever he hears the clicker he'll get a treat. This is an essential step in clicker training your dog. Another term that we will use is jackpot. This is an extra reward that you give your dog, usually when he has done exceptionally well or performed the trick perfectly for the first time.

Step 1: Ignore your dog until he looks directly at you. Click and treat.
Step 2: Do this several times, eventually adding your dog's name right before you click and treat.
Step 3: Continue doing this until your dog will look at you when you say his name.

Dog Training Tips

6 Principles of Successful Training

1.       Be Consistent: Apply the same rules and the same words all the time.
2.       Be Concise: Give your command just once. Repetition of commands teaches your dog to ignore them because it sounds like you don’t care if he obeys or not.
3.       Be Generous: Reward your dog for being right. Give him a treat, verbal praise, or an ear massage.
4.       Be Smart: Don’t give a command unless either you are confident that your dog understands and will respond to it correctly or you are in a position to help him get it right.
5.       Be Prepared: Have a leash handy in case your dog does not come to you when you call him.
6.       Be Happy: Because your dog is your friend and your training partner, keep your voice upbeat and smile at him. Dogs are sensitive to our tone of voice and body language, so use both to let him know that you will be so happy when he does what you ask him.