I Thought Clickers Were Gimmicky Until My Dog Proved Me Wrong

If you had told me a couple of years ago that I would pay money for a little plastic noisemaker, I would have laughed at you. I am 58. I drove a school bus in Knoxville for decades, and I trained him the way my father trained dogs: say the dog's name in a firm voice and hope for the best.

Then a neighbor down the street, a woman with a well-behaved shepherd, told me I needed to mark the exact second a dog did something right instead of telling him about it afterward. I said that sounded like fuss. She handed me a spare clicker from her pocket anyway. Two weeks later I bought my own two-pack of HoAoOo training clickers with a spring wrist coil, and I have had one on my wrist or in a kitchen drawer ever since.

Biscuit was the reason I tried it at all. He was 14 months old when I adopted him, 62 pounds, a Labrador mix out of the county shelter, and he had already learned that the world was a place to be yelled at. He pulled me down the sidewalk like a ski boat. He jumped on anybody who came up the driveway. He barked at the mail truck at one o'clock every afternoon like it was his job. I tried the firm voice. I tried it louder. What I got was a dog who would look at me, sigh, and do the thing anyway.

Here is the part I did not expect. It was not the clicker that changed things. It was me. For the first time in my life with dogs, I had to decide, in the moment, whether what just happened was worth paying for. You cannot be vague about that. You either clicked or you did not.

Biscuit connected the click to the treat in about three short sessions. Three. After 14 months of me hollering his name in a parking lot.

I want to be honest about the first week, because the first week was not good. I clicked too much. I clicked when he sat, when he looked at me, when he breathed in my general direction. He got fat on praise and confused about what paid. Ray, my husband, watched from the porch and asked whether I was just clicking at him now. He was right. I backed up and picked one thing, which was sitting before I put the bowl down, and I clicked only that for nine days.

The difference was immediate enough that Ray noticed it without being told. Biscuit started offering me a sit before I even reached for the bowl. That is the thing nobody explains well. Once a dog figures out that a sound means a reward is coming and that the reward is tied to something he did, he starts trying things. He starts working the problem. It is a completely different relationship than the one I had before, where I was essentially issuing requests and hoping.

Where the HoAoOo clicker fits in my house is narrower than the marketing suggests, and that is worth saying out loud. I use it for new skills only. If I am teaching Biscuit something he does not know yet, the clicker is in my hand. If I am asking him for something he has known for a year, like coming when I call in the back yard, I say the word yes in the same tone instead. The clicker is not a leash or a license. It is a marker, and a marker's job is to be the fastest possible way to say that right there was it.

The spring wrist coil matters more than I thought it would. Mine stretches from about 6 inches out to nearly 10, and I wear it on my right wrist while the leash is in my left. Early on I dropped a clicker in wet grass at the greenway and spent ten minutes on my hands and knees hunting for it. That was the last time. The blue one lives on my wrist and the black one is the spare in the kitchen drawer, which is where it has stayed for a year and a half.

One thing to know before you buy: a clicker by itself teaches a dog nothing. I mean that plainly. If you are not carrying food, the click means nothing, and if you are not consistent about timing, the dog will learn to ignore it. I keep treats in a fabric pouch on my belt because coat pockets ruined two jackets with crumbs. When we are working in the yard the pouch is on. When we are just walking it comes along anyway, because Biscuit is a dog and dogs do something worth marking when you least expect it.

What I got out of those 20 months was not a trick dog. Biscuit still barks at the mail truck, though the frozen KONG he gets around that hour keeps him busier than I could with a clicker. He still pulls sometimes, and the harness handles that. What changed is that when I ask him for something new, he now assumes there is a reason to try. That assumption took me over a year to build and about three sessions to start.

What I'd Tell You If We Were Sitting at My Kitchen Table

I would tell you to buy the two-pack, not because you need two clickers, but because one will end up in a drawer and you will be glad of it. I would tell you to pick one behavior, not five, and to give it at least a week before you decide it is not working. I would tell you that your timing will be bad the first three days and that is normal, and that the dog is not being stubborn when he does not get it, he is just waiting for you to be clear. And I would tell you that if your dog has a real behavior problem, the kind that involves teeth or genuine fear, you call Dr. Sellers and get a professional. A clicker is a teaching tool for a willing dog and a person who is paying attention. It is not a fix for everything, and anybody who tells you otherwise is selling something.

Biscuit is four now. He is asleep on the rug about six feet from me as I write this, and the blue clicker is on the counter by the sink where I left it after this morning's walk. Twenty months in, I still reach for it when I want to teach him something. I was wrong about it being a gimmick. I am happy to be wrong about that.