Clicker Training Review: The Four Secret Methods to Becoming a Super Trainer

Doing a clicker training review and coming up with a preferred resource was easy for us. Clicker training has really taken off in the dog training world in the last 20 years but the first time we tried it (or thought we tried it) we weren’t completely sold. With hindsight, we can now say it’s because we weren’t taught properly and we didn’t have the patience to educate ourselves. However, a year ago after watching a superbly trained police dog (most service dogs are now clicker trained) we decided to get educated and and give it an honest try. Our results were remarkable and the only resource we used was Clicker Training: The Four Secret Methods to Becoming a Super Trainer from the Canis Clicker Training Academy. We’ve read many, many dog training books and this one is right at the top. It is exceptional.

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What’s Included in this Clicker Training resource

The book part of this training package is over 200 pages of clicker training instruction. It was written by two professional dog trainers from Norway, Morten Egtvedt and Cecilie Koeste who converted to clicker training in the 1990’s. It starts with the theory behind clicker training and goes into excellent detail in defining the four basic foundations:

• The focus is always kept on rewarding the correct behaviour 
• The dog shall offer the behaviour voluntarily 
• This is achieved by the use of a conditioned reinforcer (the clicker) 
• The focus is always on what we can see 

They go into some detail making sure these principles are thoroughly explained and presented so they are easy to understand. They then present the four key ingredients that if always followed, will enable anyone to become a “super trainer”.

This is great stuff – and they put things into context so that the reader really understands why these things are important and how it all fits into ensuring any dog can be perfectly trained.

There is also a great section on conditioned enforcers (usually a clicker but not necessarily) and why they work so well to make sure your dog understands the wanted behaviour and why using them is far more effective than the traditional positive reinforcement training that relies on “the bribe”.

The next couple of sections layout the theory and the process in taking a completely untrained dog who doesn’t know a single command, to one that can (AND WILL) perform complex and multi staged tricks and obedience. Terms like stimulus control, back chaining, and generalization become very familiar and thoroughly explained.

The final part of the book is made up of concise and thorough descriptions of thirty training exercises, starting with introducing your dog to the clicker right up to training it how to go and open the fridge door, retrieve a canned drink and bring it back to you! Sound wild? We tried it and it worked! (Actually, not quite true – our dog can’t physically open our fridge so we trained him using a cupboard door.) One of the bonus videos actually shows this technique.

The book also comes with some bonus videos that you can download or watch on line. There are four of them and they demonstrate clicker training being used to teach the retrieve, to heel, to get the mail from the mail box and bring it to you and finally the fridge trick.

This Dog Training Book isn’t Perfect

This clicker training book isn’t a complete dog ownership book. The authors don’t seem to put much weight in trying to understand how your dog thinks (pack theory, alpha leader, pack order etc). In fact, they say none of this is important because your dog is only motivated by getting what it wants and clicker training covers that. We don’t agree – we believe it is important as a component of having a dog. You need to be able to make him understand what you want and equally important, you need to understand what makes him tick – what he wants.

There’s also no discussion about correcting poor behaviour. In clicker training, poor behaviour is handled simply by the absence of reward. Clicker training by itself may not be enough to stop a dog from jumping up on you or digging in the backyard. The authors say that behaviour correction isn’t really necessary when a dog is clicker trained because behavioural problems don’t develop. If it starts, they argue, you just get your dog’s attention and do some clicker training, focusing on a wanted behaviour and the issues go away. We aren’t quite ready to believe this although it is an excellent PART of a strategy to correct behaviour.

The only other minor critique we can find is that the book doesn’t need to be 200 pages. There are a couple of sections a bit long winded – 150 pages would probably do the trick.

The Four Secrets To Dog Training is an Outstanding Product

However, none of these observations take away from the overall excellence of this product. After reading it we had all the knowledge we needed to successfully clicker train the latest addition to our canine family. The book is logically laid out and written in an easy, conversational style. The authors have laid out all the concepts in language that is easy to understand and actually fun to read. This stuff works. We hope you've found this clicker training review helpful. If you have any interest in clicker training get The Four Secret Methods to Becoming a Super Trainer. It has our highest recommendation.

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