How to Use Clicker Training to Teach Your Dog to Go to His Mat and Stay
Most dog owners have a difficult time teaching their puppies to go to their mats on cue but this is actually something that can easily be taught using clicker training. This is a very important trick for dogs to learn because if makes it easier for you to put your dog where you need it to be, whether it is in his crate, in the car or away from visitors who are not comfortable around dogs.
Teaching a dog to go to his mat and to stay there by means of clicker training is not that hard. Here are the steps that you have to take:
1. Position the mat right in front of the dog and prepare to immediately click to call his attention. As soon as the puppy approaches the mat, click and give him his treat. Keep doing this each time the dog approaches the mat.
2. During the next stage, wait for the dog to do something more than just approach the mat before you click and give a treat. Wait for him to actually get on the mat or do something else to it like sniffing or sitting on it. Once he does this, click and give him another treat. This will gradually let him figure out that interacting with the mat on the floor is a good thing and that he gets rewards for doing it.
3. To further instill the importance of the mat, you must ignore the puppy whenever he moves away from it. The closer he gets to the mat, or the more he interacts with it, the more you should use the clicker and give treats.
If your puppy seems to be not interested in the mat at all, you can attract his attention by holding a treat out to him until his feet are actually on the mat. Typically, puppies will figure out that you want them to get on the mat within just a few minutes. However, with some dogs it can take up to a couple of sessions so you should be prepared to exercise some patience.
4. As soon as the dog is on the mat, tell him to sit and stay. When he obeys, click again and give him another treat.
5. As the dog gets used to going to his mat, introduce a one-word command like “mat” or “bed” that he can associate with the action. Eventually, you can just use the command and will no longer have to rely on clicker training for him to get on the mat.
Puppy Clicker Training – Taking It To The Next Level
Now that you have successfully trained your puppy to sit, come and go potty with the help of clicker training, you might be thinking that it’s time to put the clicker away in a box, never to be used again. Quite the contrary, the fun of clicker training is actually just starting because now, you can take your training to the next level and start teaching your puppy more complicated and fun tricks.
By this time, your puppy would already have figured out that if he does something good, the clicker makes a sound and a treat is offered to him. This is the basic concept that the entire clicker training method is built upon. It is actually quite amazing how quickly young puppies adjust to the clicker, especially if they are being trained by a seasoned professional. Many new puppies have been known to figure out how the clicker works and to learn how to focus on it within just a few minutes of training.
There are many different kinds of advanced tricks that you can teach your puppy by using the clicker but one of the most useful ones is teaching your dog not to jump up on people as a way of greeting. Of course, your puppies usually mean no harm by jumping up on people, especially on you when you come home from work at the end of the day — they are simply happy to see you. However, this behavior can get annoying, not to mention dangerous as your dog gets bigger. Therefore, it would be good to teach your dog to greet people a little less vigorously while he is still young, and this is something you can achieve with clicker training.
The first step is to put your puppy on a leash. Have someone hold the clicker and the leash while you stand a short distance away with treats. Gradually walk towards the puppy. When he begins to jump up, avoid eye contact, do not say a word and move back to your original position. Keep doing this until your dog stops trying to jump.
When the dog finally stays down as you approach, your assistant should click the clicker and you can walk towards the dog with the treat and some quiet praise. Do this repeatedly. Once your dog seems to have figured it out, do the same routine without the leash. Most dogs learn this trick after just two or three sessions. You can also speed up the process by asking everyone in the house to cooperate and to ignore the dog when it jumps at them.
