How do you clicker train multiple dogs? Tips and Tricks

Clubs Offering:

  • Clicker training, or mark and reward, is a form of positive reinforcement dog training.
  • The clicker or marker communicates the exact moment your dog does what you want.
  • The timing of the click is essential and every click must be followed by a reward.
  • Dogs repeat behaviors that get them what they want. That’s why positive reinforcement dog training focuses on rewarding your dog for the behaviors you want to see. If you give your dog a treat for giving you a paw, for example, your dog will be more likely to give you a paw in the future.

    But where do clickers and markers fit in? You may have heard of clicker training, also known as mark and reward training. Is it an unnecessary gimmick? Quite the opposite. A clicker (or marker) is a tool that can make positive reinforcement training more efficient. After being repeatedly associated with a treat or reward, a clicker becomes a conditioned reinforcer. Learn how clicker training can help you better and more effectively communicate with your dog during training sessions.

    Clicker training is the same as positive reinforcement training, with the added benefit of a clicker. A clicker is simply a small mechanical noisemaker. The techniques are based on the science of animal learning, which says that behaviors that are rewarded are more likely to be repeated in the future. So rather than focusing on what your dog is doing wrong, and taking good behavior for granted, clicker training flips the script and concentrates on what your dog is doing right. By telling your dog what to do, instead of what not to do, you can have an incredible effect on how your dog chooses to behave.

    The value of the clicker is that it tells your dog exactly which behavior you’re rewarding. By clicking at the right time, you can “mark” the moment your dog did what you wanted. So rather than having to guess what you liked, the click tells your dog precisely what they did correctly. For example, if you’re training your dog to sit, you would click at the moment your dog’s butt hit the ground.

    One of my clients lives with six dogs. Each needed to be trained individually; then they were trained in small and changing groups of two or three dogs before all six dogs were eventually worked together.

    When you are training with positive reinforcement, working with your dog obtains its own reinforcement value. Train patience, waiting, and politeness like a behavior to avoid frustration and frequent interruptions.

    I also like to condition a group marker (for this, your clicker will work just fine) that means, Everyone did the right thing, everyone gets a goodie!

    Waiting is often much harder than working for many dogs. In these situations, I always like to give the non-working dogs a higher value reinforcement than the dog that is working (waiting may get paid with boiled liver treats, while working may get paid with kibble).

    Try asking all the working dogs to sit and reward only the fastest dogs, creating a bit of a competitive edge. (Note: When I am training Mokie and Cuba together, she is much, much faster than he is, so this tends not to be very fair!)

    But there is a secret to training a dog to lie quietly on a mat, chair, or platform, unrestrained, while another dog is trained. I didn’t invent it. Sue Ailsby told it to me. I’m going to tell you the secret and discuss it conceptually. Once you get the concept, it all falls into place. (And here’s a message from the future: I taught my difficult teenage dog in 2022 to wait while another dog was trained, as well.)

    Here is what Sue Ailsby said that made it all fall into place for me. Sue said that when you start, you need to concentrate on the dog who is learning to wait on the mat. Sounds obvious, right? But lots of people who go about this task the first time, including myself, do it exactly backwards. We start taking the active dog through her paces, and throw a treat to the dog on the mat every once in a while. This often does not work.

    I started this project without having a completely clean system of releases for individual dogs. Ideally, I suppose I would have had that in place. There are several ways to go about this. Patricia McConnell, PhD, the eminent animal behaviorist, reported that her border collies could never learn individual releases of the type, “Luke, OK,” because each dog would release on the “OK.” She instead taught them to release individually on a singsong call of their name (here’s her video demonstration). However, some people do direct separate cues to their dogs using their names. Emily Larlham who recommends this video as a prerequisite to her training multiple dogs video, demonstrates her dogs responding to individually directed cues, and she releases them separately in the latter video.

    The second video shows Clara doing what is for her a very advanced version. (I taught her the basics when she was about a year old.) She is staying on her mat while I work up to a pretty rowdy game of tug with Zani. She gets up one time when I accidentally say “OK” while tugging with Zani (I say it twice! Knock head on wall!). But she corrects herself immediately. Her head is clearer than mine!

    The first video shows parts of Zani’s very first two sessions of staying on the mat while another dog is worked. I chose Summer according to my guideline #4 above. Clara could possibly be obnoxious to Zani if Clara is the working dog. We’ll work up to that.

    Can you Clicker Train 2 Dogs at Once?

    Dogs repeat behaviors that get them what they want. That’s why positive reinforcement dog training focuses on rewarding your dog for the behaviors you want to see. If you give your dog a treat for giving you a paw, for example, your dog will be more likely to give you a paw in the future.

    But where do clickers and markers fit in? You may have heard of clicker training, also known as mark and reward training. Is it an unnecessary gimmick? Quite the opposite. A clicker (or marker) is a tool that can make positive reinforcement training more efficient. After being repeatedly associated with a treat or reward, a clicker becomes a conditioned reinforcer. Learn how clicker training can help you better and more effectively communicate with your dog during training sessions.

    Clicker training is the same as positive reinforcement training, with the added benefit of a clicker. A clicker is simply a small mechanical noisemaker. The techniques are based on the science of animal learning, which says that behaviors that are rewarded are more likely to be repeated in the future. So rather than focusing on what your dog is doing wrong, and taking good behavior for granted, clicker training flips the script and concentrates on what your dog is doing right. By telling your dog what to do, instead of what not to do, you can have an incredible effect on how your dog chooses to behave.

    The value of the clicker is that it tells your dog exactly which behavior you’re rewarding. By clicking at the right time, you can “mark” the moment your dog did what you wanted. So rather than having to guess what you liked, the click tells your dog precisely what they did correctly. For example, if you’re training your dog to sit, you would click at the moment your dog’s butt hit the ground.