E-Collar FC-100 Premium Finger Clicker Trainer User Guide

: June 4, 2024
: E-Collar

Table of Contents

Phase One
Daily Food vs. High-Value Rewards
Supply and distribution
Phase Two
Recall
References
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FC-100 Premium Finger Clicker Trainer
User Guide

Welcome to the World of
E-Collar Technologies, Inc.
Premium Finger Clicker Trainer
Quick Start Guide
“Happiness is a well Behaved Dog”

E-Collar Technologies Premium Finger Clicker Trainer
E-Collar Technologies Premium Finger Clicker training is a positive reinforcement [1] animal training method. The system uses conditioned reinforcers, which a trainer can deliver more quickly and more precisely than primary reinforcers such as food. The term “clicker” originally created from a small metal cricket noisemaker adapted from a child’s toy that the trainer uses to precisely mark the desired behavior. When training a new behavior, the clicker helps the animal to quickly identify the precise behavior that results in the treatment.

To help you get started using the Finger Clicker in the most effective way possible, we are including this free quick-start basic guide. We want you and your dog to have fun! We want you to learn how to train your dog to be more engaged and responsive to your commands. You will learn how to create confidence, positive associations, and some behavior science. Only the best for you and your best friend!

The History & Science: How to reward markers work – Pavlov’s Classical Conditioning

Classical Conditioning was discovered by Ivan Pavlov way back in the late1800s. Pavlov noticed his dog would start salivating every time it entered his laboratory, to only then start salivating more at the sight of his lab technician. Of course, his lab technician fed Pavlov’s dog within the room each day, causing the dog to respond involuntarily to his presence. Pavlov’s dog was salivating because it was subconsciously predicting being fed through the change of environment, and the appearance of the feeder.

Following this observation, Pavlov started to test his discovery with multiple animals, to see if he could prompt a classically conditioned response. He would have a dog positioned behind a wooden door, sound a bell, then slide food through a wooden hatch for the dog to eat. His results, as you may predict, were that the dog salivated at the sound of the bell before it received the food, therefore, paving the first steps to the future of classical conditioning and reward markers.

In simpler terms, if you CLICK with a premium finger clicker a split second before you present a piece of food, you will start to create a response in your dog, equal if not stronger than the representation of the food.

Preparation and Introduction using the E-Collar Technologies Premium Finger Clicker Trainer
At first, the clicker will have no meaning to your dog the first time it hears the CLICK. The noise may catch your dog’s attention, but it will have no emotional value.

CLICK – When you CLICK, make sure you stay still and don’t move your hands. JUST CLICK.
REWARD – Within a split second of the CLICK, give food to your dog.

You want your dog to understand that the CLICK makes food appear. Spend two days doing six to eight five-minute training drills. If you can do more, feel free to do so. This should be ample time for using and learning the finger clicker. The goal is to practice a few hundred repetitions, so you see an involuntary reflex response from your dog when you CLICK.
Make it fun for you and your dog! Beginning with the time when you CLICK, to the presentation of food to your dog’s mouth, you want no more than two seconds. You want to eventually be hitting a very clear, quick, and consistent CLICK THEN REWARD that’s predictable to your dog. You’ll know you have done your job correctly when you randomly CLICK while your dog is going about its day-to-day business, and it immediately comes to you for a reward.
To make commands reflexive, it takes hundreds of repetitions, so be prepared to work hard in your training. Persistence, the right strategy, timing, and technique can create a dog that is ready to perform at the highest level.
You always want your dog to love training, so stop your training sessions when your dog is still enthusiastic and motivated for the exercise. Doing this leaves the association that your sessions are fun, happy, and entertaining.
Prepare for your training
You should do these exercises in two phases. In phase one, your goal is for your dog to understand CLICK = REWARD. Phase two, gets your dog to understand that CLICK = REWARD, but they are also finished with the desired behavior/command and returning to you.

Phase One

Don’t ask for behavior when you first begin with the finger clicker: just practice the CLICK THEN REWARD. You don’t need your dog to sit or look at you; however, if they are doing this, it’s ok – it’s in fact a good thing as you have their attention. The point of the exercise is to get your dog to understand CLICK= REWARD. Stay close to your dog when you’re training, keep them on a leash, and keep it simple. In the early stages, don’t talk to your dog as you want the CLICK to stand out.

You CLICK THEN REWARD as explained above. This part is all about getting your dog used to CLICK = REWARD. However, to make training simple and easier, we will use the clicker the way we do it in phase two for the rest of our training. Stick with phase one for 40-60 repetitions, then move on to phase two.

No distractions
It is important that you always set the stage for success. You want the best environment, and the right attitude from your dog and you must feel safe, confident, and comfortable to train together. Trying to introduce the use of your finger clicker in a busy park area full of distractions will be nearly impossible.
Introduce and use the clicker in a location where it’s easy to get your dog’s attention and keep them focused. This may be your backyard, a quiet room in your home, or anywhere you’ll have minimal distractions.

Food Type
Only choose a food that is palatable enough for your dog to eat quickly. You want small, easy-to-eat treats or kibble that make your training more fluent and consistent and make your dog interested. No big biscuits here!

Daily Food vs. High-Value Rewards

There are two ways to use food when training your dog:

Use their own daily allowance
Here, you feed your dog its whole daily allowance of food from a treat pouch, making sure everything comes from your hand. This helps massively in you becoming a stronger resource in your dog’s life, strengthening engagement and the desire to work hard for you as their trainer. If you find it hard to get through the whole allowance in a day, you can put the remains in a food bowl.
High-value rewards (substitute some of your dog’s daily allowance of food for high-value rewards)
Here, you feed your dog from a bowl as normal but reduce it according to the number of treats you give them. You can still work on getting a good ‘sit’ with duration and eye contact when you put the bowl down as this will keep you in control of your dog’s food and help them to feel like they are working for it.

Note: Delay their feed time or skip a meal before you start using the finger clicker: we want the food to be at its highest value. Hungry dogs will always work harder with more enthusiasm.
Note: Always check for any allergies before choosing any food for your training. If your dog has any reactions, please consult a vet or nutrition specialist for more help.
Treat pouch
You ideally want a treat pouch that attaches nicely to your belt and opens wide for easy accessibility. Keep the pouch full to make it easier for you to load up your hands, ready for training.

Supply and distribution

It is often easier to load some treats in one hand (supply) and then distributes them to the hand that will give the food to your dog (distribution). Put several pieces in your supply hand, ready to pass to the distribution hand one at a time.
Flat palm
When you deliver the food to your dog’s mouth, use a flat palm hand. We want to avoid giving the food out of the end of our fingers, as this often promotes nipping and makes the food target (your hand) less easy to aim for. A flat palm with the piece of food half covered by your thumb makes the transition of food to mouth a lot easier.
If your dog is not motivated towards food, a ball/toy may be a better option:

Have a ball in your pocket
CLICK with both of your hands empty
A split second later, pull the ball out of your pocket, step backward and let the dog take the ball out of your hand
Wait for the dog to drop the ball, pick it up and repeat.

Be safe
Before you start a training session, make sure your dog has access to water and has a safe collar and lead/harness. Be sure to have suitable footwear for the terrain you’re working with (flip-flops and snow don’t go!). And, if needed, have plenty of sunscreens.

Pick times when your dog is enthusiastic
If mornings or early evenings are more lively times for your dog, use this time to train. We want a happy, energetic dog that will help us to have a good, engaging training session. In between repetitions, give praise, walk around with your dog, and make sure you both stay focused. You only want to train for short periods, so you want as much engagement as possible. Training naturally creates a great connection with your dog, bringing focus and attention to you, and giving you strong control over competing motivators.

Don’t train your dog if you’re frustrated
If you get frustrated in your training session, it’s best to stop and come back another time. Dogs are incredibly adept at reading our energy and body language: they know when we are frustrated, and this will only pollute our training session and potentially our relationship.

Make it fun for you and your dog
Attitude is so important when you train: stick to exercises with which your dog flourishes at, helping them to always win and make your sessions easy. If you want to try out new commands, push the boundaries, but be sure to give lots of praise and multiple rewards if your dog exceeds your expectations. Laugh, have fun and be light-hearted: the energy between you both must flow and have a good vibe.

On or off leash
In the early stages of your training, keep your dog on a leash. This will help your dog to understand it has to stay with you for the training session. Once you start to gain a lot more engagement, you will naturally know when to take the leash off. You should, however, always have a leash on your dog if it is not a safe environment to let them run free.

Phase Two

Training your dog with an E-Collar Premium Finger Clicker

Get a treat out of your pouch and put it in a closed fist
Keep your fist close to your torso area, your hand closed
CLICK but STAY STILL
A split second later, take a step back
Move your hand down, and open it up into the flat palm position. As your dog moves towards your hand, take your thumb off the food, and let them take it.

Start off by teaching some basic commands standing in front of your dog, supply hand loaded and finger clicker ready. Wait for your dog to give you eye contact, then CLICK and burst backward quickly before giving rewards. You do this as you want your dog to think they are in control, and their eye contact is activating your movements. Remember, CLICK (stay still) then a split second later, move, and THEN give rewards.
Try varying the number of rewards you give your dog after each CLICK, to keep it unpredictable. This way your dog will stay attentive to the engagement game, as it will not be able to predict any patterns in your reward frequency.
Make the exercises creative, energetic, and motivating. Play around, make your own rules, and fill it with tons of verbal praise. The contrast in your movement is what will wake up chase drive. Be expressional, move fast and have fun.
Now Let’s Get Started with Some Basic Commands in Phase Two
Sit

Start the session with “LET’S GO!”

Start with a treat ready in your lure hand.
Place your hand right in front of your dog’s nose and raise your hand above your dog’s head while keeping your hand millimeters away from their nose. Make sure your thumb is half covering the food, so it is enticing to your dog, and wait for them to sit.
When your dog’s bottom hits the ground, immediately CLICK, move your hand backward and feed out of a flat palm.

Repeat this exercise for 3-5 minutes. End the session with “ALL DONE”.
Down
Start the session with “LET’S GO!”

Ideally, you want to start your dog in a stand position. If it’s easier for your dog to “sit”, practice the “down” from a “sit”, but eventually it’s a good idea to teach your dog to “down” from a stand.
Start with your lure hand, flat palm facing the dog, fingers pointing toward the floor.
Move your hand towards your dog’s nose, then slowly push your hand down between your dog’s two front paws whilst the dog follows. A good way of remembering this motion is “nose to toes”.
As soon as your dog reaches the “down” position, CLICK, pull your hand backward, and feed.
Keep repeating this exercise for 3-5 minutes

The “down”, is not something every dog will get the hang of first time. Be patient and take your time. If it is not working, come back on another training session and try again.
Note: Once your dog has given the full behavior, do not reward any successive approximations, wait for the full behavior (“down”), CLICK THEN REWARD. End the session with “ALL DONE”.

Recall

This one is a fun exercise!
As suggested, start the session with “LET’S GO!”
Find a nice flat surface such as concrete, wooden floor, tiles, laminate, or perhaps some carpet. Grass or sand make this exercise difficult: nice flat floors are a lot easier.

Hold a piece of food by your dog’s head, maybe one foot away
Throw the food away from your dog within its line of view, so it can see the food bouncing along the floor. This will wake up chase drive in your dog, so they will feel the urge to follow it.
When your dog chases and eats the food, it will naturally run back towards you.
CLICK move backward THEN REWARD.

This exercise builds the desire to come back to you and it is super fun. It is known as a food-chasing game.
Once your dog is doing this with ease and the game is flowing, you can move to the next phase.
Wait until your dog turns back and starts moving towards you. Here, we use a recall command, such as “COME”, followed immediately by a CLICK, move backward, THEN REWARD when they get to you.
Note: You want your dog to be coming back when you CLICK, so it’s important that we only use the “COME” command when your dog is good at this exercise, and you know they will reliably come back to you. The CLICK should make your dog come back with even more speed and enthusiasm.

Note: You are using the “COME” command while your dog is on its way back to you. With enough repetition, the dog will understand “COME” means move toward you. In time, the “COME” will be used to trigger the behavior of coming back to you.
Creating Good Associations – Socialization
When you have powered up the Finger Clicker to be a temporary release, it will make the dog come to us for food. If we mark (CLICK) a specific behavior, the dog will understand that it did something right and automatically get a good feeling
Start this exercise with your dog hungry, securely on lead, and make sure whatever you want them to have a good association with, is not too close and creating pressure. For example, if you want your dog to have a better association with cars, try to have cars in the distance passing slowly, as opposed to doing this exercise next to a busy road.
For this example, we will use cars as our subject.
When your dog looks at a car, instantly CLICK THEN REWARD. The purpose of this is to create a good emotional feeling when your dog is in the presence of something unfamiliar. If your dog is a couple of feet away from you, on its lead, it should move back towards you and receive its reward. You are teaching your dog, at the site of the unfamiliar and potentially threatening object, to feel good and find safety in you as the trainer.
Note: If your dog has bad associations with the object you’re trying to help with, such as cars or a vacuum cleaner and its response is more heightened (barking, whining, lunging). the CLICK THEN REWARD won’t work, as your dog has moved past its threshold and won’t take notice of the CLICK. For this, we recommend a counter-conditioning process, along with other supporting professional training.
Reward events
A rewarding event is when you give your dog a nice ending following a sequence of behaviors at the end of your training session. You can do this with a succession of treats, give affection, play with a ball, or have fun doing some engagement games.
Reward events can last five seconds or go on for a few minutes. Work with your dog’s drives; if they love a ball, reward them with a ball. If they love food, give them a handful of treats, or play some quick luring or food games.

Training Resources and Recommended Reading:

This Finger Clicker training guide contributed by
Andrew Lang, CEO of Paws in Nature
For the full supporting video to this guide see www.pawsinnature.co.uk