Q: My puppy loves being in his puppy pen in the TV room, which is one of those foldable metal fences, open on the top. He hates his actual crate, which is a metal cage for dogs, quite large, with plenty of room. I can get him to go quietly into it if I give him a wildly desirable treat. But once the treat is gone, so is his patience for the crate. I try to go in to release him only when he is being quiet, and I'm trying to work up the time he spends in the crate. Also I try to put him in the crate at "sleepy" times. But the crate training is so hard to do emotionally...he yowls! He is lonely and bewildered...he can't be loose in the house, because he chews and eliminates. So we are working on the house-breaking and chew-toy training. He is a whiz at clicker training though, and only 8 weeks old!
Skills for Every Day
Training "Leave It"
By Emma Parsons on 01/01/2006Q: I have a rescue Border collie/lab mix. He is about 5 months old, and an absolute delight. He picks up things very easily and constantly needs a job. We have been working on clicker training and we both really like it, but I have a couple of "positive training" questions. First. How do I train "leave it"? Second. How do I train him not to chew the house up? Third. How do I maintain the bond that I have developed, but have him listen to other people?
Teaching an Old Cat New Tricks
By Bill Peña on 07/01/2005My wife and I have a eight-year-old cat named Phoebus, whom she rescued as a kitten. When she found him, he was one week away from being put to sleep by the local shelter; his mother had leukemia, and of his entire litter, only he had survived. He's a great cat, with a firm but sweet disposition, and, until recently, he had never been clicker trained. He did all the normal things you want a cat to do—use a litter box, hunt mice, play, purr—but he also did some of the normal things you don't want a cat to do.
Clicking with Birds
By Melinda Johnson on 01/01/2003Join this great online list and find out how to clicker train your parrot or other bird. Here's a message from Melinda Johnson, the author of our book on clicking birds, Clicker Training for Birds. Yes! Clicker training works for birds too. Birds were among the first animals ever to be trained by B.F. Skinner and his assistants.
