THE classic book by THE original expert!
Review Details
Karen Pryor's name may be familiar as a clicker-training expert. Or the original clicker-training expert, even.
And boy oh boy, she does deserve that honor! But putting the emphasis on a cheap little plastic device can be misleading ... did she earn fame just by coming up with one small trick?
How soon will THAT fad pass?
No, there are really three big concepts involved, and any one of them could be called revolutionary in dog training.
The first is championing what psychologists call operant conditioning. Never mind the name - it's a method of training that has been studied and studied and shown to work with an amazing variety of animals. Including the human one, of course.
Basing dog training on a well-researched method makes it objective and accountable. No more guesses and intuition and magic hokum from the various people calling themselves dog trainers.
The second big thing is that the focus is on positive reinforcement. That's only one of the methods available in operant conditioning, but it's the only one that works with animals much bigger than people.
You can't jerk on an orca's leash to make it behave! So humane dog training gets tons of support from this method.
Finally, the clicker really is more than just a cheap gadget. And you don't need to use a clicker, anyway. But the point is to be able to signal the dog EXACTLY when it's doing what you want it to do.
No time delay for it to finish to get its treat. No long (by comparison) "Good girl!" that can mark several different points in time for the animal.
Really, if you want to read one book on the positive training of dogs and why it works, I don't think you can do any better than this one.
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