I am about to buy a standard size poodle. He was actually born this morning. 1-18-08. I am so excited. I have two minature poodles already and they are very smart. My oldest minature poodle we have had since a puppy; he is a white poodle. My 4 yr old female parti colored poodle, we adopted just six months ago. She, Daisy, was never housetrained or anything. She would run off if we took her outside without a leash. Daisy has come a long way. She is now in a loving house. I honestly think she knows that and has come as far as she has because of that. She was apparently abused and neglected at her previous home. With our love and her love of people she has become a wonderful companion. I am a large breed dog lover and my fiance is a poodle lover so it only made since to me to compromise and buy a standard poodle. I have never tried the clicker training method. I am going to try the clicker/treat training method with our soon-to-be standard poodle. I have been reading every book available and just purshased a puppy clicker training kit. If anyone has any suggestions or recommendations, I would greatly appreciate it. Well I hope everyone has a great weekend!!
Best Regards,
Lisa Peterson
congratulations
A new puppy - fantastic!
My suggestion would be to start clickertraining tricks with one of your older dogs. Learn the technique, how to handle the clicker, the treats (and the leash) and just have fun with the older dogs, teach them a silly trick, then you don't have to worry about bungling something important (however, positive reinforcement training is a very forgiving method, so don't worry too much about mistakes ;) )
Besides you dogs will love it.
I like to start out with a simple exercise - target to hand. Meaning that the object is to get the dog to put his/her nose on your hand for a reward. I am sure you have read about it. It is simple, easy and can be used for a lot of things. I just used it to get a reluctant dog up into the bathtub :D Much better than dragging and lifting, eh?
A good place to go besides here is www.clickersolutions.com - lots of good articles. And an associated yahoo group with friendly helpful people, both trainers and new pet owners.
I also like Aidan's site: positive petzine - good information in down-to-earth English (and a collection of them translated to other languages too)
Ok, enough with the commercial break! (*grin*) Go get that clicker, some treats and one of your dogs. Have fun!
Christina