When you get something, you didn't think, you'd as

My dogs are clicker trained. 

Clicker training is a method of animal training that uses a marker—a click—to tell an animal when he does something right.

The clicker creates an efficient language between the trainer and the animal. 

First the trainer teaches the animal that every time he hears the marker - the click - he gets a reward. Once the animal understands that clicks are always followed by a reward, the click becomes a powerful reinforcer. When this happens, the trainer can use the click to mark (identify for the animal) the wanted behavior. 

So to my dogs the click means: “What I was doing the moment my trainer clicked, that’s what she wants me to do!” Through the clicker, I can communicate precisely to the dog, which behaviour it is that I want.

But in dog training we have a saying: You get what you click for - not what you think you click for! And that's what you are seeing in this picture!

A couple of days ago, I started to teach Biscuit to fetch a dumbbell.

First I clicked for picking the dumbbell up - great - no problem!

Then I wanted Biscuit to come closer to me with the dumbbell, so I with-held the click and waited for him to take a step towards me. Brilliant - I thought...

But apparently Biscuit started with his left front leg every time he took a step towards me. And apparently I timed my clicks, so that I clicked exactly when he lifted left front leg. I wasn't aware of this... I thought I clicked for coming closer to me...

But on the 3rd day, when we were working on the fetch, Biscuit lifted left front leg every time he had picked up the dumbbell. It was obvious that it was a learned and reinforced behaviour. 

Ok... new plan! Yesterday I decided to ask for a different behaviour than leg lift, whenever Biscuit picked up the dumbbell. I asked for a sit.

Result: Biscuit sat down with the dumbbell and lifted left front leg. 

I avoided this by clicking as soon as his bum hit the ground and before he had a chance to lift the leg.

Bingo! As you can see on this picture, he still lifted the leg a couple of times during our training today, BUT we also had several lovely sits with dumbbell in mouth and 2 front legs on the ground. 

Wooooooooohoooooo! Clever sheltie!

In other news... I had a great day at work. We had Christmas pudding for breakfast in our morning break, which was good fun :-)

I met with Helle after work to train dogs and we had a super afternoon.

All in all a good day.

HAPPY CHRISTMAS BLIPLAND!

See you tomorrow (it may be late as Christmas Eve is the big day in Denmark so I will be celebrating Christmas with my family)
Emmy and the Hazyland Boys