THE THINKING DOG: CROSSOVER TO CLICKER TRAINING

By Gail Fisher

It is such a joy to work with a dog who proactively engages in behaviors while you build a relationship that will surprise you in its depth and versatility. Clicker training has proven to be the most effective means of developing a “Thinking Dog,” one who offers behaviors in anticipation of a reward rather than a dog who has been trained only to wait for his owner’s commands. One of the biggest obstacles the new clicker trainer faces, however, is his or her own history of training and habits of working with a dog. But you can make the transition once you understand how dogs learn and the mechanisms of operant conditioning. Learn from author Gail Fisher’s crossover experiences as well as those of the hundreds of students she has helped make the change over the past thirteen years. You will learn: * How dog training has evolved over the past 100 years, the strengths and weaknesses of various training styles, and to what extent you can intergrate your previous methods with clicker training. * The particular challenges you will face as you crossover from whatever style of training you have used in the past (compulsion, luring, etc.) to clicker training. * The detailed nuts and bolts of clicker training - from getting a behavior started, to methods of rewarding, to reducing the need to click and treat over time while still getting the results you want. * How to work with dogs trained with force or harsh methods and change them into behavior-offering dynamos. Click here to view an excerpt. What reviewers are saying... MIDWEST BOOK REVIEW “Written by Gail Tamases Fisher, a professional dog trainer of over thirty years' experience, The Thinking Dog: Crossover to Clicker Training is a guide to using clicker training to develop a "thinking dog" who offers behaviors in anticipation of a reward, rather than a passive dog trained simply to wait for its owner's commands. Someone new to clicker training may find it difficult to break out of familiar routines; The Thinking Dog: Crossover to Clicker Training teaches one how to surpass one's own ingrained habits while learning the nuts and bolts of operant conditioning. "By definition, LLW [loose-leash walking] means there is no tension in the leash. This rule is absolute: Your dog may not pull and be successful. Any time your dog pulls and gets to move forward, pulling is reinforced. So from the moment you start training LLW, any time your dog is on leash, you are either in training, or using equipment that prevents pulling, such as a front-connection harness or head halter. Do not use a Flexi- or bungi-lead as they reward pulling." An excellent, easy-to-use manual for amateur and professional dog trainers alike, handily illustrated with black-and-white photographs.” James A. Cox DOG WORLD When Gail Tamases Fisher attended her first clicker-training seminar in 1996, she was already a skilled trainer and the author of two books. She had built a successful career on the Volhard motivational method. “I was happy with how I trained for the 20-plus years that I had used and taught this approach, believing it was by far the best way to train for both dogs and people,” Fisher writes. As her skepticism vanished, she began incorporating clicker training into her methodology. She explains her decision in a balanced manner: “Nothing in this book is intended to denigrate any approach or diminish your success with whatever training method you have used.” The Thinking Dog details the author’s experiences and techniques for basics like using clickers to teach house manners and resolve common behavior problems, as well as advanced training for competitive sports. This is a great book for novice owners and experienced trainers looking for fresh insights, along with anyone else interested in trying clicker training. Fisher discusses pitfalls and potential problems with clicker training, rather than presenting it as one-size-fits-all method. For instance, she notes spec

• Language: English
• Publisher: Dogwise Publishing
• Release date: Jan 1, 2009
• ISBN: 9781617810046

Gail Fisher

Gail Fisher has been training dogs professionally for over 30 years. She is the owner and founder of All Dogs Gym, one of the largest training centers in the country. Gail is the co-author of Training Your Dog and Teaching Dog Obedience Classes. She lives in Manchester, New Hampshire with her dogs, Canon and Kochi, and two cats.

Book preview

The Thinking Dog

Crossover to

Clicker Training

Gail Tamases Fisher

Wenatchee, Washington U.S.A.

The Thinking Dog

Crossover to Clicker Training

Gail Tamases Fisher

Dogwise Publishing

A Division of Direct Book Service, Inc.

403 South Mission Street, Wenatchee, Washington 98801

509-663-9115, 1-800-776-2665

www.dogwisepublishing.com / [e-mail]

© 2009 Gail Tamases Fisher

Illustrations: Verne Foster

Photos: Karen Hocker

Graphic Design: Lindsay Peternell

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, digital or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage or retrieval system without permission in writing from the publisher.

Limits of Liability and Disclaimer of Warranty:

The author and publisher shall not be liable in the event of incidental or consequential damages in connection with, or arising out of, the furnishing, performance, or use of the instructions and suggestions contained in this book.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:

     Fisher, Gail Tamases.

       The thinking dog : crossover to clicker training / Gail Tamases Fisher.

             p. cm.

       Includes bibliographical references.

       ISBN 978-1-929242-62-7

       1. Dogs--Training. 2. Clicker training (Animal training) I. Title.

         SF431.F58 2009

         636.7’0887--dc22

2008051809

ISBN13: 978-1-929242-62-7

Printed in the U.S.A.

To all my dogs who have taught me so much.

Luci, Loki, Wilhelmina, Tisza, Juno, Reveille,

Paprikash, Argus, Calisto, Adam, Apple, Solo,

Orion, Shura, Katie, Hobbes, and

Mayday, my crossover dog.

How I wish I knew then what I know now.

More praise for The Thinking Dog

I’ve never been interested in dog training books. They tend to be prescriptive and dull—take your dog in your left hand and your 2 x 4 in your right... I grew up in a generation which believed that there were just two ways to train dogs—the wrong way and my way. One of my old sled dog mentors taught me to make them run and then make them like it. Back then the how to train your bird dog book would say, ...if you have a problem try plan A, or try plan B, and plan C... get another dog! When I watch popular TV shows, visit a dog shelter, or evaluate some service dog training program, I think, things haven’t changed so much.

But I was fascinated by this book. I followed Gail Fisher’s thoughts through her transformation from an old-timer to somebody who could see how the advances in learning theory applied to dog training. Her historical analysis of what happened? and her generosity to the individuals who facilitated those happenings become a powerful teaching tool in Fisher’s hands. She is very clear, with an interesting teaching technique which bridges the theoretical with the applied. At last I could see the connection between learning theory and dog training in a way I never have before. I now feel so sorry for all those dogs I trained!

Ray Coppinger, co-author of Dogs: A New Understanding of Canine Origin, Behavior and Evolution

Gail understands the questions and concerns of a crossover trainer because that is what she is. She was a successful and well known trainer who crossed over into clicker training. Her book presents a clear, easy-to-follow process for making the transition. Gail’s book will make a great addition to the clicker library, easing crossover trainers through the process of becoming thinking trainers.

Alexandra Kurland, author of Clicker Training for Horses

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Acknowledgments

Preface

Introduction

PART I: Putting it in Perspective: Past and Present

1. Crossing Over

2. Learning and Training Fundamentals

3. Clicker Training Basics

4. Pitfalls and Payoffs to Crossing Over

PART II: Crossing Over…Just Do It!

5. Build Your Clicker Skills

6. Getting Behaviors

7. The Joy of Shaping

8. Building Behavior

9. Building Reliability, Precision, and Speed

PART III: Brass Tacks

10. Punishment, Corrections, and the Crossover Trainer

11. Engaging Your Dog

12. Putting It All Together

Afterword

Appendix A. Cornerstones and Charts

Appendix B. Developing your skills

Appendix C. They’re all tricks to your dog

Appendix D. Earn Life: A program of polite living for thinking dogs

Sources and Resources

Bibliography

About the Author

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I have the most wonderful staff in the world. A more dedicated, principled, compassionate group of people cannot be found. Topping the list is Myrian Bergeron, my right hand for the past 15 years, and several incarnations prior to that. Wendy Bergeron and Shari Sarris whose training wisdom, kindness, counsel, advice, and philosophical synchronicity keep me focused. Donna Jones, Pam Stafford, Rachael Cody, Jean MacKenzie, and Ann Jowdy whose dedication to doing the right thing for the pets in our care and the clients they deal with daily allows me to sleep at night, and gave me the freedom to write this book. The instructors who shared the crossover experience, pitfalls, and joys with me, Judy Pollard, LynnMarie Millette, MaryBeth Tessier, Stacey Allard, Wendy, DJ, and Jean, and the other instructors, trainers, and staff at All Dogs Gym ®, too numerous to name (and terrified I’ll forget someone). Thank you all.

It is said, When the student is ready, the teacher will appear. Nothing could be truer for my life, education, and evolvement in dogs. I have had the good fortune to have been mentored by some of the most wonderfully generous teachers, trainers, and friends throughout my career—in each training incarnation, each important in my journey prior to and in crossing over.

Susan Mayer, my first dog training instructor who put up with my incessant questions, recommended books, and convinced me I could teach. The late Olive Point, whose focus on teaching people was instrumental to my growth and who convinced me to teach a university course for dog trainers and instructors—leading to the greatest educational experience of my life. Jack Volhard, responsible for my first training epiphany, who put me in the front of the room, helped hone my public speaking skills, and whose collaboration and camaraderie I enjoyed in the many camps, seminars, and the two books we wrote together. Karen Pryor, whose books headed me toward the principles of clicker training long before I had the good fortune to meet her. My crossover odyssey was precipitated and guided by Gary Wilkes who challenged long-held beliefs, and whose countless hours talking to me on the phone often confused me as much as answered my questions—but in my confusion, I got it.

For this book itself, I am grateful to so many: Verne Foster and Karen Hocker, illustrator and photographer extraordinaire. The students, trainers, and dogs who helped demonstrate my words: Wendy Bergeron, Rachael Cody and Gabe, Kris DiBurro and Vision, Beth Gutteridge and Cami, Michelle and Bruce Kenney and Cody, Denise Lind and Duke, LynnMarie Millette and Becke, Shari Sarris and Logan and Mazzie, MaryBeth Tessier and Finlay, Stella and Dharma, Carolyn VanderHorst and Kaylee, and Julie Wolf and Ryder. And our clients and students who loaned us their dogs for photographs: Darby, Dax, Journey, Kochi, Rosie, and Siku.

Elizabeth Kershaw and Corally Burmaster provided incalculable help advising, critiquing and encouraging me, not just for this book—which has been invaluable!—but with training, learning, growing, developing, progressing, and continuing this wonderful crossover journey. Chase Binder who helped early on. And the wonderful folks at Dogwise Publishing, most ably led by Charlene, Larry, and Nathan Woodward. And Lindsay Peternell for putting it all together, never losing patience with my nitpicking, and working just as late into the night as I did.

And finally, Skip Ashooh. Words cannot express, and really aren’t necessary, to describe your profound contribution. Just as importantly, you wouldn’t want me to.

PREFACE

The title of a book matters. It can profoundly affect the book’s impact and influence. Consider if the first edition of Don’t Shoot the Dog! had instead been called Practical Use of Positive Reinforcement in Human Behavioral Interaction. Such a title is unlikely to have sparked a sea of change in the world of dog training. While every dog book author certainly hopes their book will have such far-reaching impact as Don’t Shoot the Dog! has had, I am not so arrogant as to imply this one will (though I can dream …can’t I?). Nonetheless, a title is important.

I advocated for the title The Thinking Dog despite some expressed concern that its meaning isn’t inherently clear to those unfamiliar with how clicker training works, or that some dog owners might fear training a dog that thinks rather than one that simply obeys. But this book is about training that inspires your dog—that ignites your dog’s mind. So let me start by allaying such fears and describe what I mean by a thinking dog.

A thinking dog works in partnership with the trainer, offering behaviors for the trainer to pursue, to guide, and shape the dog’s actions. Once trained, a thinking dog makes choices—the right choices…for us, and for the dog. A thinking dog chooses to leave untouched the food on the table; chooses to greet the visitor at the door with all four feet on the floor; chooses to chew the toy lying next to the expensive shoe rather than vice versa.

A trained dog will obey, but a thinking dog goes far beyond obeying commands. It goes beyond training your dog to sit, lie down, and come when called. While teaching responsiveness to commands is a component of any training, achieving voluntary good behavior—what most of us want from our dogs—is about so much more. It’s about when a dog is faced with options, he considers them and chooses the right one—the good behavior. A thinking dog chooses to behave the way you want him to behave, not because you gave him a command, not because you manage or supervise her, but because you’ve taught your dog that the right choice for her is the choice that’s right for you, too.

Some might be frightened at the idea of having a thinking dog—might the dog be too clever? Too creative or resourceful? Is a thinking dog more difficult to control, more challenging, harder to live with? The answer is, No. A thinking dog is the greatest joy, the greatest dog partner imaginable, behaving in ways that make both of us happy.

There was a time in my 30 plus years as a professional dog trainer when I could not have envisioned recommending to my clients and students that they encourage their dogs to think, a time when I could not imagine encouraging a dog’s individual initiative. In my prior training life, a clever, enterprising dog was a greater challenge, requiring more management, more control, more domination, more correction. In my former methods a bright, thinking dog caused frustration for most owners, exasperating their patience, often leading to anger and other relationship-damaging reactions.

Far from fearing cleverness, I now appreciate and delight in watching a dog’s mind turn on—seeing the wheels begin to turn, seeing the dog start to use his initiative—to think. As you will see, this about-face, this complete change of attitude happened when I became a crossover trainer. I hope this book sparks the same epiphany for you and your dog—delighting in and relishing your training collaboration—training your thinking dog. After all, a dog’s mind is a terrible thing to waste.

INTRODUCTION

I attended my first clicker training seminar in 1996. Little did I know at the time that this event would be life-changing, sparking a total transformation in both how I train dogs and teach people. Clicker training was to become the third incarnation in my career as a professional dog trainer. I was about to become a "crossover trainer—a trainer with experience in another method who crosses over" to clicker training.

Virtually every dog owner has opinions and beliefs about training a dog—some degree of crossover thinking. Regardless of your training background and experience, chances are you have ideas about how to train a dog, and you’ve had some success. You may be curious about clicker training, but you like what you’ve been doing. Or you think there may be something better, but you aren’t convinced that your old approach isn’t the best. Or you’re trying to be a clicker trainer, but your prior method creeps in, perhaps without your even being aware. Or maybe you, like so many others, have had some exposure to something called clicker training, which has resulted in basic misconceptions about just what clicker training really is.

Changing from one approach to another is not easy. I don’t mean refining a technique, finding an easier way to train down, a better way to teach a retrieve, or a more elegant approach for training heelwork. I mean a total change in philosophy: examining, assessing, and discarding past practices. Each of my training conversions followed an epiphany—an awakening replete with self-examination, confusion, uncertainty, apprehension, and even depression—sadness about how much better it would have been for previous dogs I trained had I only known then what I know now. As I have learned, grown, changed, and learned still more, my new knowledge is enhanced and strengthened by my past. I have not so much abandoned what I had previously done, as much as put it in perspective, moved on, filing it in the recesses of my memory to examine from time-to-time, and possibly even use, if circumstances dictate.

My training career started with the Koehler Method, an approach that is commonly referred to as traditional or correction training. Such training uses physical manipulation along with the discomfort of collar pressure to communicate to a dog, Avoid doing that.

A few years into my profession, I was introduced to the Motivational Method, an approach using a combination of physical placement, luring with food, and collar checks. This led to my collaboration with Jack Volhard with whom I wrote two books: Training Your Dog followed by Teaching Dog Obedience Classes. The teaching manual was conceived and written as the text for the two-year certificate program I was then teaching at the University of New Hampshire, entitled Instructor Training for Teaching Dog Obedience.

Despite no longer using these training techniques, I am proud of these books, especially Training Your Dog, which won a prestigious award from the Dog Writers Association of America as the Best Care and Training Book of 1983. This book filled a critical niche at the time—not just for my university students, but for dog owners looking for a kinder, gentler method to supplant the traditional approach.

While the method in Training Your Dog was different from anything else at the time, there are specific similarities in virtually all non-clicker training approaches. Pick up any of the hundreds of dog training books in publication (and countless others no longer in print), and the focus is on two things: the mechanics (physical procedures for the trainer to follow) and the exercises (specific behaviors such as sit, lie down, and heel, for example).

A training method puts mechanics together with exercises. For example, this is the procedure for teaching (fill in the blank) using a food lure to entice the dog into position. Or this is how to train it with physical placement. Or this is what you do to get a behavior using some mixture, a combination of approaches called The (fill-in-the-blank) Method of Dog Training.

The specific exercises you train depend on your goals, such as to enjoy a well-mannered family pet, to train an agility wiz, develop an obedience trial champion, a hunting buddy, search and rescue partner, or to participate in any of the many dog sports, activities, and occupations available to our canine partners and to us. Look through the book and DVD listings on Dogwise.com—a site devoted to dogs, dog training, sports, and pursuits—and you’ll find books on virtually every imaginable activity you can do with your dog, each with the author’s instructions: the recipe to train the exercises for that endeavor.

Both of my prior methods were mechanics and exercise-based. Instructions explained the procedures for teaching the first exercise, then another, and another, and so on. With a structured approach, after you learned how to train the foundation exercises, you moved on to the intermediate level, where you then learned how to train several new behaviors. Want more advanced training? Sign up for class or get the next book that covers those procedures and exercises.

I was happy with how I trained for the 20 plus years that I used and taught this approach, believing it was by far the best way to train for both dogs and people. Then, nearly ten years after the publication of the teaching text, I tried clicker training. Despite the ties to my two training books and the method they espouse, I could not deny clicker training’s pre-eminence.

When I began my crossover odyssey, first training my own dog and then introducing it to my students and clients, I hosted several seminars at All Dogs Gym ®, my training business. At one of these early presentations a participant who used my training books and had been to several of my seminars and training camps, told me she was there to learn about clicker training, having heard a rumor that I had changed to it. Almost secretively, in a grave and serious tone, she said, I know going public couldn’t have been easy for you. I had to laugh. I’d been outed: Ohmygosh, Gail Fisher’s…a clicker trainer!

At first, it seemed like a daily occurrence that someone would say, "You’re switching to clicker?! What about your writings, teaching and seminars—the years you’ve devoted to espousing your training method? How can you chuck it all? My response was simply, I have no choice." Seeing how well clicker training works, I couldn’t not change. Nor have I ever, even for one moment, regretted doing so.

What is it that makes clicker training different from methods that rely on either luring or physically placing a dog into position? Clicker training is based on the laws of learning (operant conditioning in this case), but then so are other methods. It is based primarily on using positive reinforcement, but so are other methods.

What makes clicker training different is that it is uniquely principle-based, not exercise-based. Rather than learning how to teach your dog specific exercises, the clicker trainer understands how to apply concepts rather than procedures, using the immutable principles of how learning happens rather than following a recipe. Understand the concepts and principles, and you’re good-to-go to fully enjoy your dog. Not just to teach exercises, but to understand and influence how your dog learns anything—limited not just to training, but how every-day interactions can result in having the dog of your dreams.

But wait. There are already books about clicker training. Why write another? Because this book isn’t just about clicker training. It’s about all training—what you know, what you’ve heard; what you’ve done; even what you’ve rejected. It’s also about helping you make the transition from whatever method you use now to clicker training. It’s about how to understand and contrast differences between methods, the pros and cons of each, difficulties and obstacles, as well as advantages and benefits.

I often meet crossover and potential crossover trainers, who say they have tried clicker training…but.… The very word try implies a built-in safety valve, a safe implication of regret: "I’ll try...but if I don’t like it, you can’t blame me. At least I tried. In the immortal words of Yoda the Jedi Master, Try not. Do...or do not. There is no try. Trying clicker training, learning the basics is easy. Learning the ins and outs, the whole picture—not so easy. Yet going beyond trying it" is so well worth the effort.

Nothing in this book is intended to denigrate any approach or diminish your prior successes with whatever training method you have used. My goal is to look at different methods of training, compare and contrast them, while examining how they affect how a dog learns. Also how you, as a trainer, react to them, and how these methods differ from clicker training.

It is not my goal to convince you that my way is best. This isn’t about personal opinions or preferences. Rather, it is about what happens in your dog’s head. It is about how your dog thinks and how your dog reacts to training. While another method might work (they all do, at least to some extent!), clicker training makes learning easier for your dog, and ultimately easier for you. Crossing over isn’t about what you’ve done previously—it’s about what you do from now on.

I dislike using clichés, but there is a perfect adage that applies to clicker training: Give a man a fish, you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish, you feed him for a lifetime. Better still, when a man understands the fish, he can feed the village and eat like a king. Clicker training provides more than a trained dog, it teaches us how to achieve dog behavior. Not by exercises, but by principles and philosophy.

Had I not already been a believer in clicker training, I would have become a devoted advocate the day I got the following note from one of the crossover students in the very first intermediate (Level 2) clicker class I taught. As a new crossover trainer myself, this student had severely tested my new-found, burgeoning, fragile, clicker-training knowledge. Dubious about this new fangled training, she had openly challenged me several times when her small, blond, Sheltie mix was non-responsive and noisy. Several weeks after her class ended, I got a letter from her that could not have expressed any better the relevance of the fishing adage, and the profound power and implications of learning clicker training. She wrote:

Dear Gail:

Skeptical as I was in class, I have to relate a clicker experience I had last night with Maddy. We wanted to teach her to retrieve a Frisbee, and she’s not a retriever by nature. If we throw a ball, stick, whatever, she might chase it once, never brings it back, and usually looks at us as if to say, Hey, that’s a good toy, why’d you throw it way the heck out there?! Then she trots off to sniff the bushes.So last night I decided to try to use the clicker (and treats of course!) and teach her to get the Frisbee (one of those cloth ones.). Honest to God, in 15 minutes she was chasing it across the living room, bringing it back, and dropping it at my feet. Now you know Maddy, so she was prety vocal when she would get confused. But I’d just go back to the step she understood and take it from there.The progression was: 1. Touch the Frisbee next to me in my hand. 2. Touch the Frisbee next to me on the floor. 3. Touch it after I threw it across the room. 4.Bring it back to me (then we had to get her to not want to play tug-o-war with it, so I had to do give a few times.) 5. She got it!

I know we may have to back track a little tonight and when we move to outdoors, but she did it! I’m a believer! Thanks!

Gaining an understanding of how to teach your dog anything you want does not mean abandoning what you already know. Just as I have the knowledge gained from my experience with prior methods, you, too, likely have previous learning. There may come a time when a former technique is not only useful, but is appropriate. Armed with a new perspective based on objective information and knowledge, you will not only know how to use it, you’ll understand why it works, why it might be the technique of choice, and be able to evaluate how it will affect your dog, your dog’s learning, and most importantly, your relationship.

You are embarking on an adventure. As with any major change, it may be rife with frustrations, uncertainties, and confusion—and trust me, as a crossover trainer, you’ll feel all that and more—but the result will be a profound respect for your thinking dog’s mind, and a deeper, more fulfilling relationship than you ever imagined possible, for you and for your dog. Let the adventure begin.

I

Putting it in Perspective:

Past and Present

Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.

—George Santayana

Overview

When I see a new training book by the latest designer trainer, or a TV program with the telegenic trainer to the stars du jour, I think we are condemned to repeat the past. Dog training and our knowledge of dog behavior has come a long way over the past 100 years, but little (if anything) is new. As you’ll see in Part I, virtually every method falls into one of three discernable categories.

To put dog training in perspective, in this section I review and evaluate training methods using our knowledge of the past—where modern dog training started; what has happened over the past hundred plus years; and where we are now. As dog trainers have become better informed about how dogs learn, there has been greater evaluation of training methods from the dog’s perspective, using our improved recognition of dog body language and communication for insights into what our dogs are thinking and feeling. With this as a sound foundation, we are not condemned to repeat the past. Dogs are certainly the better for that!

Chapter 1

CROSSING OVER

My Crossover Journal

I was frustrated, disappointed, and, truth be told, embarrased when I first tried clicker training with my four-year-old Bearded Collie, Mayday. Enrolled in a clicker training seminar with Karen Pryor and Gary Wilkes, I was not just a participant, I was the host—and an experienced, successful dog trainer. Given instructions to shape a behavior, we participants spread out to train our dogs. All around me I heard click, click, click as others successfully shaped behaviors. I stood silent. Well-trained and extremely obedient, Mayday looked at me, patiently waiting to be told what to do, offering nothing to click. Why wouldn’t my dog cooperate?! Move! Offer me something!But Mayday’s extensive training history said not to, and I couldn’t make him.I had to allow him. A new approach to me and foreign to my dog, it would be two months before Mayday stopped waiting for a directive. We were, the two of us, quintessential crossovers.

As you embark on this training adventure, you may not experience the same level of frustration as I did when Mayday and I first tried clicker training. You may not even consider yourself a crossover trainer, but the chances are good that you are.

The term crossover was coined by Corally Burmaster, founding editor of The Clicker Journal, to refer to those of us who have some training experience and have decided to crossover to clicker training. Whether or not you have a great deal of previous experience, it is rare for someone to know absolutely nothing about training a dog and have no preconceptions.

Almost everyone’s a crossover trainer

Dog owners get information and impressions from many sources that may include training on your own, taking a training class, reading a book, or training instinctively— doing what feels right. We get ideas from watching dog trainers on TV, and even from friends and co-workers with (or even without) dogs.

Sit in a restaurant and tune in to snippets of conversation from a nearby table. Chances are you’ll hear the word dog. Often the topic is a behavior issue, complete with a layperson’s advice and counsel. Anecdotal information and opinions about dealing with dogs are easy to come by and they influence dog owners both subtly and explicitly. Even people who have never actually trained a dog have preconceptions and ideas about training, making everyone a potential crossover trainer.

Backgrounds vary, but as their dogs’ trainers, all owners, fall into one of the following. You may be:

• A trainer with knowledge (from a little to a lot) of clicker training.

• A crossover trainer with a crossover dog (one that has had some prior training by another method).

• A crossover trainer starting fresh with an untrained dog.

• Or one of the fortunate few—a dog owner with no prior training experience— nothing to unlearn—starting fresh with an untrained dog who also has nothing to unlearn.

Regardless of your background or experience, before learning about clicker training, it is helpful to understand what has gone before as training methods have developed over time.

A brief history

Dog training has been around as long as we’ve had relationships with dogs, but modern dog training is only about 100 years old. Over the past century, many dog training techniques and methods have developed, evolved, come, and gone.

How it started

Col. Konrad Most, arguably the father of modern dog training, trained military and service dogs in Germany at the turn of the 20th century. Most wrote the first comprehensive how-to book, Training Dogs, a Manual, published in Germany in 1910, and then translated into English in 1954, the year of his death.

Training resilient dogs with strong temperaments, Most’s techniques relied on collar corrections and punishment, an approach viewed as heavy-handed by the majority of pet dog trainers today. While now considered harsh, Most’s training followed the principles of operant learning (which is how dogs learn to offer voluntary behaviors), effectively using consequences (corrections and praise) to reward or punish a dog’s behavior. By and large, his techniques were successful, especially with the working dogs Most and his disciples trained.

Most’s compulsion-praise training techniques spread throughout the world as his students and disciples emigrated to other countries. His structured approach to training was adopted as the model for military training throughout Europe and North America, and his methods are still used today in many military, police, and service dog training programs.

Three trainers helped spread Most’s training philosophy to America. They were Carl Spitz (Training Your Dog, 1938), Josef Weber (The Dog in Training, 1939), and Hans Tosutti (Companion Dog Training, 1942).

Spitz lived in California where he trained dogs for the movies (Toto in the Wizard of Oz and Buck in Call of the Wild among others). He is credited with devising a system of silent hand signals by which to control his dogs at a distance. Significantly, it was Carl Spitz who developed the American war dog training program in World War II, training Doberman Pinschers for the Marines at Camp Pendleton.

Hans Tosutti immigrated to Boston, where, in 1936, he founded the New England Dog Training Club, the oldest existing AKC member obedience training club in the country. Josef Weber lived in Philadelphia, and it is through his students that this method of training was spread even further.

One of Weber’s students was Blanche Saunders (The Complete Book of Dog Obedience, 1954 and The Story of Dog Obedience, 1974) who, with Helene Whitehouse Walker, originated AKC Obedience trials, traveling around the country spreading the concept of companion dog training to the general public. Among Saunders’ students and followers were many of the well-known trainers of the 1950’s and 60’s, including Winifred Strickland (Expert Obedience Training for Dogs, 1965) whose book, Obedience Class Instruction for Dogs, published in 1971, was the first publication targeting group class instructors—those who taught others how to train, rather than trainers who worked one-on-one with a dog.

The Koehler era

It was the advent of World War II that solidified the military training approach as the model for pet dog training. At the end of the war, many soldiers came home with a skill: training dogs using the methods developed by Konrad Most fifty years earlier. In the U.S., the most famous of these dog-training veterans was William Koehler, whose book The Koehler Method of Dog Training (1962) was, and may still be, the all-time best-selling dog training manual.

With relatively few training books to compete with it, and unabashedly self-promoting, Koehler’s manual became a reference for virtually every dog owner and dog trainer for the next two decades. While it requires a trainer to have good timing and coordination, the Koehler Method can result in successfully trained dogs. It offers clear instructions and effective techniques for trainers able to employ them, at least with dogs that are able to handle corrections. Using the consequences of punishment and praise as Konrad Most before him, Koehler’s book profoundly influenced dog training throughout the U.S.

Adding to the popularization of dog training were the movie (and later TV) dogs, Rin Tin Tin (trained by Corp. Lee Duncan, who learned from a Most-trained German Kennel Master who was held in an American prison camp in World War I), and Lassie (trained by Rudd Weatherwax, whose brother Jack worked for Carl Spitz). So it was that the two world wars laid the foundation for the German military dog training method that spanned the next 80 plus years.

This history puts in perspective the global nature of traditional, compulsion-praise training, based on the teachings of Konrad Most, down to William Koehler who made an indelible mark on dog training in America, and whose method is still followed by