Dog afraid of clicker?

When I first took my CT class, the instructor had us transition the marker from "Yes" to the clicker.  His experience was some dogs do get afraid of the clicker sound.  All we did was to say "Yes" and then dropped the treat.  The dog would look for more then we said "Yes" and dropped the treat.  After about 10 times, we then moved to Clicker and did the same thing many times.  At this time, there was no expectation of behavior even if the dog offered a behavior.  Then we focused on Click/treat for one behavior....for most of us it was sit.

Your treats should be real yummy and be a small portion, BB size.  Maybe you can do this during snack time or while you are all in relaxed state, such as watching tv.  Sometimes a dog know when a formal training session is coming and if the last one was not a good experience they will avoid the new session.  You have a sscaredy dog and you have to take that into consideration when doing any trainng.  I think you need to go slow and take little progressive steps.  That why I thought you were doing too much and expecting calm behavior before treating.

Thank you very much for explaining what you meant when you said I was doing too much. Next time I'll take it slower and certainly will start from the relaxed state. I think you're dead on about her recognizing the signs of a formal session.

If she does get afraid and leave again, would I be correct in ignoring her (as opposed to following after or trying to get her to come back) and trying again from the beginning after a while when she was calm? If she gets scared, I'll assume I'm doing something wrong/have done something wrong in the past and need to go slower.

i think, yes, you are doing the right thing in just ignoring her. if you follow her, you will only increase her anxiety! those freak out moments - you have to just let it go and try again later...

you don't actually have to "charge" the clicker/marker in this formal way- does the dog know any behaviors at all, like sit? ask for a sit and when the dog sits emit your marker and reward. Some dogs get very confused by the formal "charging" process but rapidly catch on to what it means when used to mark known behaviors. If your dog is very sound-phobic you can use a laser pointer or even a hand gesture as a marker.

 This is a tough issue, because it feels counter-intuitive.  The dog is supposed to begin to love the clicker!  I have actually trained one dog that had this problem.  What we did to get over it was to let me sniff and see the clicker.  Spend some time with it.  Let it touch him.  If he pulls away, you keep him there and calm him and pet him as you touch him with the clicker.  Then, you can eventually start to add the actual clicking in.  Click it once, don't let him run away, and stroke him and sooth him and let him know that it's ok.  Then give him some more positive reinforcement.  i.e. Give him a treat.

This is often a very needed first steps for skiddish dogs.  Check out my puppy training blog for more in depth information on this type of training

 My Puppy Training Blog

 Feel free to post question or comments, and I may write an extended entry to one of them
 

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