As an Amazon Associate, GadgetsForYourDog.com may earn a small commission (at no additional cost to you) if you purchase products from Amazon after clicking on a link from our site.
Training a dog is an important task that every responsible dog owner must carry out as soon as they get their dogs if their pets are to be well behaved. Clicker training, a type of positive reinforcement training, makes use of a plastic device that makes a ‘clicking’ sound when you press it and is called a clicker.
Dog training clickers aid in the training process and will help to make your work easier. Read on to find out exactly what clicker training is if you do not already know what it is. Also, learn how to use a clicker to train your pooch and the 5 best dog training clickers there are on the market.
Table of Contents
How to choose?
Before buying any product, you should always arm yourself with knowledge on what the different features that you might want or not want in the product are. Dog clickers are small and inexpensive tools, but that doesn’t mean you should not still watch out for the features you might want. Below are some things to note about these devices:
- Strap: some of these tools have straps with which you can wrap them around your wrists or attach them to leashes, your pocket, etc., while others don’t.
- Durability: these tools are simple, but that doesn’t mean that they can’t be durable. Buying a well-made one will save you the extra cost of purchasing another one when you don’t have to. In this article, you will find the most durable clickers that we’ve come across.
- Ergonomic design: you are going to have to press the device as soon as your pet obeys your command. Therefore, you need a device that will not be cumbersome to hold or press. Good clickers are convenient to hold and click.
Dog clicker training
As mentioned earlier, this is a type of positive reinforcement training. For it to work, you’ll need treats which you’ll use to reward your pet for good behavior during the process. Apart from treats, you’ll also need patience and perseverance for the method to work.
So how does this work? It’s quite simple. Each time your pooch does what you are teaching it to do or obeys the command you are giving, you press the tool. Immediately you press it, you follow up by giving your pet a treat. In essence, the training focuses on your pet’s good behavior as opposed to bad behavior.
The click sound lets your pet know what you require it to do. For instance, if you want the animal to heel, you give the command, and as soon as your pet obeys that command, you press the tool and then give a treat as a reward. With time, the animal will learn that if it follows your command and hears the click, it will earn a treat.
5 Best dog training clickers
If you are looking for the best and most affordable clickers for dogs on the market, then you can go through these that we have found.
1. PetSafe Clik-R Dog Training Clicker – this tool makes training your furry friend fun and rewarding.
Below are the features of the product:
- Weight: 0.002 ounces
- Durable: yes
- Soft click: yes
- Compact and lightweight: yes
- Material: plastic
2. Premier click stick dog trainer – this is another great tool for dogs that will serve your purpose. The device is multi-functional as it has an expandable target stick that you can retract, extend partially, or extend fully, depending on what you want. This property makes the device versatile and more convenient to use than having to use a separate target stick and clicker.
Other features of the device include:
- Weight: 4 ounces
- Durable: yes
- Soft click: yes
- Compact and lightweight: yes
- Material: plastic
3. StarMark clicker dog training system – this clicker has great features that many dog owners who are trying to train their pets love. Its button is easy to press and is not too big to be a bother. Also, it is quite sturdy and is one of the clickers that we have found will last for a long time.
Other things to note about this device are:
- Weight: 0.96 ounces
- Durable: yes
- Soft click: moderate
- Compact and lightweight: yes
- Material: plastic
4. Dog training clicker with wrist strap OYEFLY – with this device, you can train different pets, including dogs, cats, horses, etc. This one has a wrist strap with which you can attach it to whatever you want to attach it to.
Other things to note about the device include:
- Weight: 1.59 ounces
- Durable: yes
- Soft click: moderate
- Compact and lightweight: yes
- Material: ABS
5. OYEFLY training clicker with wrist strap – this one is like the tool mentioned above but in a different package/colors. It is also durable and can be used to train different animals, not just dogs.
Other features include:
- Weight: 0.52 ounces
- Durable: yes
- Compact and lightweight: yes
- Material: ABS
How do you use a clicker for dog training?
Using a clicker to train your pooch is quite easy, even if you are a beginner. As mentioned earlier, the training is based on positive reinforcement. The first thing you should do, as with all tools you plan on using with your pet, is to introduce the item to your pet so that he gets used to it. How do you introduce the clicker to your pooch?
First of all, make sure you’ve got some treats nearby, then take the tool in your hands and then show your pet the clicker. To avoid distractions, you should use a quiet room to do this since dogs can easily get distracted.
Distractions will slow down your progress a great deal. If you have more than one pet and you want to train them all, you should do it one after the other. Training more than one pooch at a time is going to confuse them. After showing your pet the device, press it so that it makes its clicking sound, and then give the animal a treat.
Do this a few times so that your pooch will associate the clicking sound of the device with treats and will pay attention to you at the sound of the device. Now that your pet knows that the sound of the clicker equals treats, you can start to train the animal.
Say, for example, you want to teach your dog to lie down, you should make the animal perform the action, and when it does, you press the device immediately and then reward it with a treat.
Always make sure that you give your pet the treat exactly when it obeys your commands. Repeat this a few times so that your pet will associate not only the click with the treat now but the action you want it to perform, the click, and the treat. Next, instead of urging your dog to lie down, you use words to teach the animal to do so.
To encourage your pooch and let it know that you can appreciate its obedience, you can use praise words like ‘yes.’ If you’ve got a deaf pet, a tap on the shoulder will suffice.
Each time your dog performs the action correctly, press the tool and then reward the animal with a treat. Once your furry friend has got this down pat, it is time to move on to the next step. This time around, you will not press the clicker except the animal obeys your command when you ask it to lie down vocally.
If your pet lies down without you giving the command, do not give it treats. Only give it treats when it does so at your command. When the dog now lays down at your instruction, you may stop giving it the treats and stop pressing the clicker and use praise words in place of them to encourage the animal.
Always keep the sessions short enough that your pooch does not become bored or get tired with the whole thing. For best results, do not let each session exceed fifteen minutes before you let your dog rest.
Dog training with clicker pros and cons
Everything that has an advantage will surely have a disadvantage. Luckily though, the advantages of this method far surpass its disadvantages.
What are the pros?
- The method is simple enough for you to use and for your pet to grasp. It is easy to practice, in so much that even you children, if you have any, can train your pooch using it. In fact, it is recommended that every member of your household participates so that your pet can respond to them all.
- It helps you to get rid of bad behavior in your pooch. While it is easiest to train a dog while the animal is still a puppy as the tendency of the pooch to have learned bad behaviors like stubbornness and aggressiveness is still very low, some people get adult dogs that may not have been trained before. You can still train your adult pet and get rid of negative traits like stubbornness or teach the pooch tricks with the use of a dog clicker. You just need to be patient with the animal, and before long, you will see the changes that you desire.
- It strengthens the bond between you and your dog: Dogs love to receive praise and attention, and using this method in which you praise and reward your dog for good behavior will strengthen the bond between you two. The same goes for family members who participate.
- There is no inflection problem with the use of the tool. Good clickers make a soft clicking sound that is the same all the time you press it. This is not the case with human voices, as your voice can always change in tone, pitch, and so on. The different inflections in your voice could easily confuse your pet, causing the animal not to understand what you require of it. The same goes for when different people, say your family members are trying to train the pet. The tool will help eliminate any confusion that your dog may feel when it listens to commands from different voices.
- It is quicker in producing results than some other methods and is very effective. Using this method with puppies is very easy and produces results fast. Try to be as consistent as possible and be patient with your pet. When using voice commands in addition to the clicker training, always remember to keep your inflection the same to avoid confusing the pooch.
- It helps to mentally stimulate your pooch.
What are the cons of clicker training?
- Some dogs may not be so responsive to it. While clicker training is a very effective way of training most dogs, some pooches do not respond well to it. It depends on the individual pet as some of them do not like the sound the tool produces. This is especially common with devices that are too loud as they may scare the dog.
- Aside from that, you may not be offering something your dog likes very well as motivation. If you notice your dog is not responding well to the training, get food your pooch enjoys very much and use it instead.
So all in all dog training clickers are useful tools for helping to train your pet. The training makes use of positive reinforcement as it involves you using treats to reward your dog for good behavior.