Clicker timing - confused

Hi, was are doing a brush up puppy obedience course so we're back to basics! I've been using a clicker with Flame since she was about 10 weeks old, so she's very used to it. With the sit, stay command in the class (and probably down, stay too, thinking about it), I'm now confused and wonder if someone could clear something up re clicker training. I have always used sit....(wait)... click, treat. My dog obviously knows click = treat and looks for it straight away. Is this right? Our trainer tells us to sit, click.... (wait).. treat. If I do this, my girl is frantically looking around for the treat on the click and stops sitting. I thought the click was the signal to the dog that they had performed the required action and that the treat came straight after the click? Don't mind either way - just need to know how to continue going about it?

Now I'm sure Shona will correct me if I'm wrong but you are supposed to sit,click as soon as they sit and treat quickly.You only wait to treat through time ie the longer the dog has been doing it,the reason for waiting is your supposed to get the dog used to doing without the treat in the end,god I hope I'm right or she's gonna say I aint been listening and I'll get a cuff round the lug AGAIN!!!!!!! XXXXX

I think there are several different ways to do this
What I have been trying to work on (although it is difficult)
you click for the movment - ie bum heading towards floor - and then treat for the position - when they are sitting
It is also helpful if you can get a slight pause in between click and treat so if you are ever doing things at a distance from the dog the click tells them 'that thing you did right then was the right thing - treat is on the way as soon as I get to you'
But if the dog knows how to sit you also dont want to click and treat every single time they do it else they will always want the treat
so expand to sit, down click - sit down sit click (puppy pressups)

Also I found it useful to teach that sit or down or whatever ment 'sit there till I tell you to do something else' so they dont bob up straight away
basicaly I put him in a sit and treated, then treated again before he got the chance to move - then released him
next time slightly extended the time before the 2nd treat
building up to walking away a step or 2 before returning to treat
Makes it much easier not to have to keep going 'stay stay stay' he just stays where he is put till you tell him not to (well most of the time)

You should be clicking the behaviour you like. If your dog knows sit there is no reason you can't sit, wait click and treat because that way you build up the time the dog sits before reinforcement which helps with stay work

If you were teaching the sit straight off it would be sit + click + treat in quick succession - the click would come as the dog's bum hit the ground. If the dog already knows sit quite well - build up the time before she gets reinforced with the click and treat to teach her not to spring up straight after a sit.

The treat should always come as soon after the click as possible but your trainer could be asking you to wait to check that your dog knows what your clicker means (I will do this with a 'new clicker dog' - ask for a slight delay to see if the dog looks for the treat.

Lottie, the way you describe is how I think I have clicker trained her - click on the final behaviour (sit, stay...wait 1 minute, then click and treat). Or have I got that wrong? Flame knows 'sit, stay' and 'down, stay' pretty well. She sits 99% on command, mostly without food rewards. We are reinforcing at the moment through classes. I guess I'll ask the trainer next week if we can continue this way.

At the moment she will sometimes move off from the position on a click, looking for her treat or cuddle, unless I'm right in front of her. Perhaps by delaying the treat she will learn to wait a bit longer; but as you say the click and treat should come in quick succession ideally?

Also, with the 'down' command, she's learnt my action of arm down, and not the command - how do I now teach her to down on the command and not the action? She will only down if I move my hand/the lure downwards to the floor! My fault, but I don't know how to correct it now without confusing us both. Thanks for any advice.

gold star,,,in a way,, but to extend the behaviour I would ask for the sit-click, if the dog got up I would place her back in the sit, but not click again, then wait a few seconds and treat,

that said I have found that its easy to extend the behaviour during healwork, eg if the dogs doing nice healwork and you click, then do a few more steps and treat, building it up from there to more and more steps before the treat, {I have also found the dog will often do better healwork after the click as its waiting for the treat to come so his head stays up in the right possition}

so I guess my answer to the question would be, if your dog breaks the min you click, place her again, wait a second then treat, but dont click again, you may find she gets the hang of it very easy or she may become very confused, if she is confused just go back to basics, If shes not confused and just being demanding, poss a diff method would be needed

I have always been doing it, so the click ends the behaviour... As with the sit, click as soon as her bottom hits the floor then wait longer and longer till you click... When the behaviour is well established you no longer need the clicker.

I have clicker trained mine, that yes, the click marks they have done the right thing and a treat is coming, but it doesn't always end the behaviour, so if they are in a sit stay, they are still not to move, I will go back to them to give them the reward, that is started as someone said above, by clicking and quickly delivering the food while they are still in the sit, then the time is built up between the click and the treat being delivered, if they move, put them back in the sit in the same place before delivering the food, you have already clicked.

At the end of the day it depends what YOU want.

If you don't mind the click ending the behaviour - then use it in that way - many people do

If you'd rather ensure they don't break the behaviour when you click - follow the directions above by putting them back in that behaviour (with no click) before rewarding.

You need to fade the lure/prompt - which means saying the cue word, and then luring/prompting and gradually fading out what you're doing - basically by making your hand movement more and more lazy (very gradually!) until you're barely moving your hand and eventually, you're not!

Always say the word first.

I use the click to mark the behaviour but the treat can come at any point be it immediate or later, with my first 'clicker' dog, the click ended the behaviour as you describe and it led to problems when we moved onto more complex stuff x