I train all three dogs every day. (Well, almost every day; nobody's perfect.) It's a lot like my work of teaching blind people how to get around, in the sense that every one is an individual with an individual learning style, and when I go from one to the next, I have to "switch gears" mentally.
Hilda is my crossover dog. For anyone reading this who's not familiar with clicker training terminology, a crossover dog is one that was first trained the "traditional" way (i.e., compulsion-based as opposed to reward-based). She's been leash-popped, "high-collared", strung up by the choke chain until she couldn't breathe, et cetera. (This was all long in the past, people; don't judge me.) Hilda is pretty tough mentally and could handle that kind of training. She was a fast-learning, accurate, serious worker during her brief career as a Seeing Eye dog. When we moved to Arizona, I started reading up on clicker training and decided to introduce Hilda to it too. She loved it, of course. (Why? because the clicker makes training FUN for dogs! What a concept!) But I can't help noticing the difference between Hilda working for the clicker and Hilda working to avoid correction. She is not serious at all with the clicker. She gets impatient and barks at me if she's not getting clicked enough. She tries her other tricks if she's not sure what I want. (That's called "throwing behaviors" in clicker-speak, and is something else I really don't like about clicker training. I have to say I miss the serious focus I used to get on dogs who were very anxious to avoid being corrected.) Hilda likes anything that involves big, fast movement (retrieving the dumbbell, running around a pole and back to me, jumping), and dislikes anything that involves shaping very small, precise movements or positions (staying within three inches of my leg when walking on a leash instead of her preferred six inches, learning to put her paw on her muzzle for the "I'm So Embarrassed" trick rather than putting her paw out like she does in the "Shake" command). If she doesn't "get it" quickly, she gets stressed and starts panting. Actually she can't work for very long no matter what we're working on. In our hour-long Rally-O class, I work for ten minutes, then take a ten-minute break, and repeat until class is done. I thought about competing in obedience with her, too, but then decided I don't have the time or inclination to fix her problems (heeling too wide, sitting out of position, et cetera). So I decided she can just learn tricks and that will be it for her. (Though I'm quite sure we could fake our way through a rally novice course, if necessary.)
Sunny has been all-clicker since puppyhood. He's never had a correction -- never needed one. He's so soft that if I frown at him it makes him nervous and he leaves. If I praise him too excitedly it also makes him nervous. So we stick to just the "click" to tell him what's right and what's wrong, and that works perfectly. He's the opposite of Hilda in that he needs to learn every tiny step before moving on to the next tiny step. He's the type who, if he doesn't get it exactly right, he will get stressed and quit. If he were a person, he would be the kind of person who would try something for the first time and then say sadly, "I guess I'm not any good at this," and never play again. Thank GOD for the clicker, or I don't know how I would have trained him. Once he gets something right, it's in his head forever, and he will never do it incorrectly no matter what's going on around him. But it's so easy to screw him up. (Another thing about the clicker: it's so precise that you can inadvertently create a behavior you don't want. For example, when he was little and I was teaching him to stay off furniture, I thought I was getting the behavior I wanted by clicking and treating when I said "Off" and he jumped off. Little did I know that he had also associated the jumping on the furniture with the "Off" command and the click and treat. So I had accidentally made a behavior chain that went Jump on the Furniture-Hear "Off" Command-Obey "Off" Command-Get Treat. I don't remember how I fixed that, but I do know that he doesn't get on furniture unless invited up now.) I just created another accidental chain with the retrieve. I had him nicely picking up the dumbbell off the ground and looking at me to get the click. The next step was to get him to release the dumbbell into my hand. Little did I know I had accidentally built in a "back up one step" to the behavior of picking up the dumbbell. Now when I put out my hand he backed up one step and dropped the dumbbell and never, ever dropped it in my hand. If I moved towards him, he backed up faster, thinking he was wrong. I finally stood him in a corner with his butt to the wall and moved my hand so the dumbbell landed in it a couple hundred times. Finally he made the connection and moved his head to drop the dumbbell in my hand. I clicked that another couple hundred times, still with him in a corner with his butt against the wall, and finally moved outside where he wasn't in a corner. I brought out my best treats and, thank God, the behavior held. Only a few more steps and we will have a bona fide retrieve. It's a real pain in the ass to get there but I know that once we do, I will have a totally solid retrieve that will never fall apart.
Sunny also has a much longer attention span than Hilda for training, and he is serious and focused in a way that she is not. He really likes to get it right. Hilda just likes to have a good time, unless the threat of a correction is involved, in which case she is really motivated to get it right too.
Zsiga is, of course, all-clicker too. (Although he's tough and sound enough that I bet he will be corrected at some point in the future, when he becomes huge and strong and loses his brain in adolescence.) He loves to train and never seems to get tired of it. He can work through hundreds of treats in one sitting and is just as enthusiastic at the end as he is at the beginning. He will work for his own dry kibble with no problem. (Hilda and Sunny will accept kibble, but only if it's in a bag mixed up with hot dogs or chicken or cheese or something else to give it flavor.) I love training puppies! They are total sponges for learning, with no baggage yet to slow down their training. Zsiga is up for training anything, any time. He is totally focused on whoever controls the clicker, and has, I think, a remarkable level of self-control for three months old. I can tell him "Leave It" and throw a handful of food on the floor all around him and he will just look at me and wait for the "Okay" before he eats it. He knows that he has to Sit or Down while I'm getting his meal, and if he gets up before I say he can, his food bowl goes away for a few minutes until he feels like being more obedient. He knows that if he wants to go through a door, the easiest way to make it open is to sit and wait until someone says "Okay", and that barging through it is a waste of time. He doesn't get everything right on the first try, but he applies himself 100%, and that is a wonderful quality in a dog.
I love that my three dogs are so different. It keeps things interesting. I can't wait to see how my new Aussie puppy Annie learns things. Just a month left to wait!
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