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Have You Ever Been Right, 47 Times?

By Karen Pryor on 05/01/2005

On about the tenth or twelfth ping, the handler took her chocolate, pocketed it, and then suddenly looked at the Clicker+, pointed at it, and said "That's for ME!" I nodded and smiled, "You've got it!" And she did. We'd finished the training, as far as I was concerned.

When she left the stage, the dog was glued to her side. She spoke to the dog before going down the steps, and she went back to her seat without jerking the leash once. Ping!

Service with a Click

By Gale Pryor on 05/01/2005

Debi Davis, service-dog trainer and ClickerExpo presenter (Minneapolis, November 2005), writes training articles for national and international magazines and is an Internet mentor for service-dog teams in training. In 1998, she co-founded OC-Assist-Dogs, a Yahoo Group Internet discussion list for those clicker training service dogs, now the largest service-dog discussion list on the web. In 1999, her papillon, Peek, became the first toy breed and first clicker trained dog to earn the Delta Society's National Service Dog of the Year award. In 2003, Peek was among the Pedigree Paws to Recognize Canine World Hero nominees. Peek and Debi were also profiled on a segment of the international television program Dogs with Jobs. A member of the APDT, IAADP, IABC, and the Delta Society, Debi lives in Las Vegas, Nevada, with her husband and five clicker trained dogs. Recently, we spoke to her about clicker training assistance dogs and her experiences attending ClickerExpo San Diego.

The Phoebe Chronicles XIV: Clicking the Family (Dog)

By Gale Pryor on 04/01/2005

My three boys live with all this clicking, and accept that this is how one communicates with dogs. They do it themselves, and have clicker trained old Esme to paw their foot when they ask any question beginning with "Who's the best... -looking in the family/basketball player on the street/skateboarder in town?" They've also trained Phoebe to bark on cue, run toward them and bounce off their chests with both paws, and nibble on their fingers when she wants the treat they're hiding in their fist. While I'm not keen on the behaviors they've chosen to train, they got those behaviors with solid, positive, marker-based training.

Ear Cropping

By Karen Pryor on 04/01/2005

Q: I am being trained in Canada to become a clicker trainer. I have three great Danes and an American pit bull terrier. All four of my dogs have had their ears cropped. My trainer has told me that I can no longer crop dogs because once I become a clicker trainer, cropping is unethical and promotes unethical practices for clicker trainers. In Canada it's legal to crop ears and dock tails. I show and breed great Danes, which is why I choose to crop. I also chose to crop my pit bull to represent the breed as she is my service dog and is registered with assistant animals of Saskatchewan. I know it is a strong subject and I do understand that you can show uncropped dogs, but do you know of any literature that agrees with what this trainer is telling me? I would like to have something on paper to back up her statements so I can make a better judgment on whether or not to stop cropping my dogs. My dad thought she was just trying to push her strong beliefs about her disgust of the whole crop issue on me to try to sway me by using clicker training as a method of stopping it. Please help!!!

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