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It was B.F Skinner's two understudies that started operant conditioning with animals. Their names were Marian and Keller Breland. While they worked for Dr. Skinner, they noticed how affective operant conditioning would work with animals. During World War Two, they started the company, Animal Behavior Enterprises, and trained pigeons for use in the War. After that, they built the I.Q Zoo, where they trained chickens to play tick-tack-toe, raccoons to play basketball, and ducks that played pianos and drums (as well as many other animals doing many other tricks).
Clicker Training Today
Well what does that method have to do with you and your dog? Well this same method is what we call the clicker method. All you have to do is reward your dog whenever it does the thing your are trying to teach it to do. For example, you catch your dog sitting, all you have to do is reward it then and there. Sounds pretty simple does it? The only problem that this method has is that by the time you can say "Good Boy!" the dog is most likely doing something else by then. This is where the clicker comes in handy. This is just a small plastic box with a thin piece of metal on the inside. When you press the button, (or on some clickers, just press in the thin metal sheet), the device will make a sharp metallic click. Whenever you click, the dog knows that the click means "treat." The way to get the dog to learn this is simple, just click your clicker, and treat the dog. Do this for three or four times, and pretty soon whenever you click, the dog will look around expectantly for a treat. Now whenever you catch your dog doing something that you want it to do, just click your clicker. This tells the dog that what he did was good, and that he's going to get a treat for doing it.
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