Perfecting the basics of clicker training

This first behaviour I recommend you train when starting Clicker Training/ Positive Reinforcement Training, is teaching them what I call "standing still and doing nothing" and the food comes to them.
They're not actually doing nothing, standing still and eating IS a behaviour.
It's important to teach them to stand and relax, the food comes to them, they don't have to figure anything out until we teach them to do something different later.
This is really important and sets both the trainer and learner up for success in the future.
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[@cailiecurrin724]

Thank you for this! I noticed that in a few cases, it looked like you had your hand in the treat bag for a bit before throwing the treats. Is that intentional?

[@whisperinghorsetraining]

Hi Callie, great question! Basically if I'm pre-loading my hand with food, I do it while he's eating or not watching me, so if I think he can see what I'm doing, I'll leave my hand in the pouch, so as not to distract him from what he's supposed to be doing and not have him watching my hand movements all the time and I only remove my hand with the food when I'm ready to feed him, which can then become the click, you'll notice his head moves towards the bucket expecting the food, when he sees my hand go in to the food pouch, because he knows the food is coming. They will always find a marker, even if we're not using a clicker and sometimes that can work well for us and sometimes it can work against us, it depends. He does know the click as well and he does know a verbal marker "good" as well. It shows we can have multiple markers as they are very smart!