You are humanizing the dog, the dog gets the cue(a click in my case)immediately, the dog is then rewarded. IMHE the dog associates the click with not barking as it wasn't barking when it hears the click, dogs do not ponder was that cue for me barking ? they associate it woth what they were doing when they heard it

Many people who have never seen someone training a dog with a clicker think of it was a new gimmick, it isn't it's a tool that gives the dog(or dolphin, cat, horse, tiger etc etc)a marker that is followed by a reward that has been used for years-originally it was a whistle for the non domestic animals & later the clicker was introduced. the beauty of the clicker is that it always sounds the same & cues the dog that the behaviour it is offering is rewarding.

It can be used in all dog training & once you have grasped the timing it's so very easy. At our pet training club, we have dogs learning a new "trick"in a few minutes & when tested the next week, the dog has retained the behaviour. It took my Tommee less than 10 minutes to learn sit & down for example & a club members dog literally 30 seconds to stop jumping up !

As for concentrating only on the core basic nehaviours, sorry I teach, recall, walking to heel(off lead so the dog never learns to pull)drop on recall & on sendaway most days 1. because it offers the dog more opportunitiew ro use it's brain & think & 2.because it is all part & parcel of a dogs learning curve

That's one of the many joys of clicker training....you don't have to get the treat in at the exact point of what you are trying to reward because the click marks the point you are rewarding..then you treat. So you click when the barking stops. It usually works fantastically.....unfortunately Remus learnt to bark, in order to be quiet in order to prompt me to click and treat him! Clever little b.

In general clicker training works so much better than training with no clicker as you can train far more specific things and it communicates to the dog more effectively what you want. I've cued some amazing things with clicker training...sneeszing on command and then shaped it to Big sneezing, and Little sneezing...flicking one ear on command, and then the other one. I was on a training course once where someone trained their JRT no skip with them. With agility it's great because it can be a choking hazard if you try to treat on the exact point with some moves...same with rolling over or playing dead, you want to reinforce the being flat on their backs bit...but you really don't want to pop a treat in then!lol!