The Kids Are Back In School. Do Your Pups Need Some Education, Too?

Ann Omura’s dog Bogey ran her into a tree, severely bruising her and blacking both her eyes.

“I love this dog,” Omura said of the large goldendoodle. “I didn’t believe in love at first sight until I had this dog. But he’s too strong for me. I have to be able to trust him on a leash. I have to be able to control him.”

Clicker training was the key to keeping the relationship happy, she said. Clicker training is based on marking and rewarding positive behaviors rather than correcting negative ones.

“This is affordable, and it’s doable, and the dog loves it,” Omura said.

Omura and her husband, Keith, of Webster Groves, signed up for a new training class being offered at the Webster Groves Recreation Complex. The sessions are run by two longtime trainers, one from Affton and the other from St. Charles.

The women are firm believers that clicker training works better than using force or punishment to control dogs.

“We’re rewarding dogs for making the right decisions,” said Sarah Hoth, owner of The Persuaded Pooch in Affton. “We’re asking them to think on their own.”

Erin Wigginton, owner of Helping Hounds Training in St. Charles, agreed. She used to use more traditional training methods that involved collar corrections. But when she rescued Ava, a pit bull mix, in 2005, those methods weren’t working. She consulted with other trainers and quickly became a convert to clicker training.

“Ava took to it like a duck to water,” Wigginton said. “It worked so fast, and all the people and all the dogs were happier.”

Now Hoth and Wigginton have teamed up to teach clicker training in group lessons in Webster Groves. On a recent Saturday, they were working with the Omuras and several other dog owners in an activity room at the recreation complex.

The participants already had come to an introductory meeting to practice using the clickers without their dogs. The clickers are small handheld noisemakers. The trainers say it takes a little practice to learn to “click” at the moment your dog is performing a desirable behavior. The idea is that the dog learns that a “click” means he is doing the right thing. The proper behavior is then rewarded with a treat.

On Saturday, the dog owners were working on having their dogs walk with a loose leash, sit, focus, come when called and “target,” which means to move to or touch a target.

Eventually, the clicker is phased out and used only for teaching new behaviors, the trainers say.

“The best thing about clicker training is once you have the basics down you can apply it to all different situations,” Wigginton said.

Practicing is important though. Wigginton told the dog owners to keep it simple, but practice with their pets three to five minutes three times a day.

“If you’re working every day and keeping it really fun, you are going to see progress,” she said. “Make it super easy for them to do things right.”

Hoth and Wigginton teach classes for both puppies (8 weeks to 6 months old) and adult dogs. A new session at the begins Sept. 17 and runs for six weeks. Visit the city's website for more information.

To learn more about clicker training, Hoth and Wigginton recommend a website by a pioneer in the method, Karen Pryor.