To start with, any movement of her head towards it gets a click and treat. You need to be very quick with the click so you do it before she gets the chance to use her teeth. Then, as you progress, which may be after a session or two, you can start being more particular about what you click for; only click the nose touch and not anything with the teeth. Once you've charged your clicker, you shouldn't need to re-charge it each time. The fact that you're training with it should be enough for her to understand that a click means a treat is coming. Of course, there's no problem reinforcing this at the beginning of a session, but I'd do that with a behaviour she is already strong at to get her "in the groove". I was advised to start each training session with a bit of a focus exercise, so C&Ting for looking at me, throwing the treat away so that the dog has to make a concerted effort to come back and focus on me again. I do this, and throw in some basic behaviours that they are very strong at after a few of just looking at me. This helps the dog understand that it's time to work, and you get a feel of how "switched on" your dog is before you start training new behaviours. At your stage, just a few C&Ts for looking at you at the start of a session would be an indicator to her that it's time to work and reinforce the fact that performing a certain behaviour results in a click, which then means a treat. I don't think that just C&Ting for nothing specific at the beginning of a session brings anything to the party, and could even confuse her.
snowbunny Not quite understanding this part ....sorry lol lo lol I was advised to start each training session with a bit of a focus exercise, so C&Ting for looking at me, throwing the treat away so that the dog has to make a concerted effort to come back and focus on me again. I do this, and throw in some basic behaviours that they are very strong at after a few of just looking at me. This helps the dog understand that it's time to work, and you get a feel of how "switched on" your dog is before you start training new behaviours.
OK, here you go. Sorry about it being so fuzzy; DH isn't a natural videographer. [video]https://youtu.be/OQFU2Q7dxnM[/video] I hope you see what I'm doing. You can't really hear the clicks, sorry. To start with, whenever Shadow looks at me, I click and throw a treat away from me - he goes to get it and then turns back to me. At your stage, you'd want to do this for a bit longer and don't expect Ziva to be as responsive as Shadow is at first; he's done this a lot. After a few simple clicks-for-attention, I throw in a few cues for behaviours; sit, down, hand target. All very basic and stuff he's confident with. I can tell how "switched on" he is by how he responds to these cues. You'd probably not be introducing other cues for a while though, just stay with the clicking for attention and throwing the treat away from you. Doing this before a training session really helps the dogs to know it's work time, and also sets them up for success by giving them something really easy to start with.
Absolutely brilliant thank you I can hear you click lol lol will try tomorrow in garden Cheers Huni x
