Timing

Timing is important in animal training. That's why clickers have become a good way to teach new behaviors. 

Imagine teaching a dog to sit without a clicker. You say "sit," the dog sits, and you deliver a treat. But other behaviors will happen in that time frame. By the time the dog gets the treat, he might have stood up, wagged his tail, made eye contact with you, and barked. How is he to know which behavior earned him the reward? 

Now let's introduce the clicker. The dog knows that every time you click, he gets a treat. You say "sit," the dog sits, you click when his butt hits the floor, and you deliver the treat. The click told the dog, "that's what I want you to do. A treat is coming." It doesn't matter what he does after the click - he knows that the sit earned him the treat.

The clicker is almost a magical tool, but it requires precision. What if you click half a second late when the dog is standing? He'll think you want him to stand, right? I ran into this problem recently when training my pet rabbit and found out just how important timing is.

Wally loves running through his tunnel and will race at top speed to the other side. But I noticed last week that he started pausing in the middle and just sat there. I was puzzled initially, but then realized that I had gotten sloppy with my clicker. I started clicking prematurely when he was still inside the tunnel. He had learned, "being in the middle of the tunnel gets me treats!" So that's where he stopped. 

Wally sits inside his tunnel, waiting for treats.

Wally had taught me to be more careful with my clicks. Now I wait until Wally exits the tunnel before clicking. After just a few repetitions, he's back to racing through the tunnel (click!) and running back to me for his treats.