Dreaming of a better behaved dog in 2026? It’s time to look at your skills, not your dog’s.
As the festive season approaches, now is the ideal time to take a step back, assess where you’re at with your dog training, and set some fresh goals for 2026.
You might be looking to kickstart your training. Maybe you’ve got a new puppy or dog to work with. Perhaps life has finally got a little less busy, and you’re ready to take your dog training off the back burner. Or maybe you’re looking for a new dog sport and hobby to explore.
If you’re a seasoned dog owner, you might have already started making mental notes of your dog’s weak areas, or you might have noted certain behaviours where the wheels are starting to fall off.
No matter where you’re at, we understand that the start of the new year brings an air of optimism and a fresh dose of motivation.
And to help you make the most of this, in this month’s blog, we look at some key concepts all dog owners need to grasp to level up their training and get the results they want from their dogs.
How do dogs learn?
Before we rush off to train our dogs, it’s really helpful to zoom out and have a full understanding of how dogs learn.
While learning theory has moved on a long way, with many other factors now recognised for their effect on our dogs’ learning, we still use the core concept of operant conditioning.
Using four quadrants, it describes how behaviours are strengthened or weakened based on their consequences.
R+ Positive Reinforcement is the addition of something the learner finds pleasant in response to a behaviour, making them more likely to repeat that behaviour again in the future. For example, giving a treat for recall.
R- Negative Reinforcement is the removal of something the learner finds unpleasant, which also makes them likely to repeat the behaviour. For example, the loosening of the lead when the dog stops pulling (stopping pulling = relief from the tight lead).
P+ Positive Punishment is the addition of something the learner finds unpleasant in response to a behaviour. For example, smacking a dog for barking. Behaviour in this instance is likely to be avoided.
P- Negative Punishment is the removal of something the learner finds pleasant in response to a behaviour. For example, leaving the room when a dog jumps up. Again, behaviour is likely to be avoided in the future.
At Clicker Gundog / Kemble’s Field, we focus on positive reinforcement, rewarding the behaviours we want to see more of.
Are you rewarding your dog correctly?
Positive reinforcement is something that happens after a behaviour which the dog enjoys, or feels better because of, making them more likely to repeat that behaviour again in the future.
It is anything your dog finds pleasurable. This could be a tasty treat, a fun ball chase, or a game of tug. But it could also be the opportunity to sniff something, permission to keep hunting, or being asked to keep working. And it might, for some dogs, be verbal praise.
The key is that it’s based entirely on your dog’s perspective: a reward is only a reinforcer if your dog finds it rewarding.
If you want to improve your training, it’s essential to observe the world through your dog’s eyes. If you notice a behaviour is becoming stronger (e.g. is being repeated more) in response to a stimulus (e.g. a cue), it’s crucial to identify what reinforcement they’re receiving, as it may not always be what you expect.
Often overlooked, play is an extremely powerful reinforcer for our dogs. With gundog breeds in particular, we are always challenged by the lure of the environment. We need to be inventive and thoughtful in order to provide the appropriate type of reinforcement in a given situation.
We need to remember that dogs are predators. They love to sniff, stalk, chase, capture and consume. Many also like to dissect or at least tug or rag.
By engaging in play activities that encourage and allow our dogs to express their natural behaviours, we are tapping into something that is intrinsically rewarding for our dogs. These games become an increasingly valuable tool when our training moves on to more challenging environments.
What is clicker training?
As well as focusing on positive reinforcement, here at Clicker Gundog / Kemble’s Field, our training methods centre around the use of a clicker.
A clicker is simply a small handheld box with a button or piece of metal that can be pushed by the handler to create a ‘click’ noise.
This ‘marks’ the precise moment that our dog has performed the correct behaviour or given us the response we were looking for.
Our dogs use this to learn when they have done something right and to anticipate that we are about to ‘pay’ them with positive reinforcement.
Sometimes, it is also useful to have an additional verbal method of marking the behaviour, which is called a ‘marker word’. This word should be said in a specific tone and be as consistent as possible and we advise you choose something your dog wouldn’t normally hear such as “tick”, “wow”, “yip”, or “yes”. Commonly used words like “ok” or “good” are already part of the white noise that your dog hears every day and will be far less effective.
Before you get started, you will need to ‘charge your clicker’ or marker word so that your dog understands that they associate the clicker, or marker word, with something positive and that it is a signal that they have earned a reward.
How do we train behaviours to our dogs?
A behaviour is simply any action your dog does, but when we talk about behaviours in training terms, we’re usually thinking about the specific actions we want to teach, encourage, or change.
That could be something you’ve asked for, like sitting when you give a cue, or something they do naturally, like sniffing the ground or chasing a ball.
We must find ways to communicate with our dog what behaviour we are looking for from them before we can reward it, add a cue and start proofing it.
There are different ways to achieve this as follows:
Capturing
This is self-explanatory - you capture your dog’s behaviours as they happen. It is a really cool way to train more spontaneous behaviours and we often use this to train dogs to shake on cue as dogs will naturally shake when their coat is wet. When they shake, we can click and pay and thereby ‘capture’ this behaviour.
Putting a shake on cue can help with our delivery to hand out of water as we can teach them to hold off the shake until the dummy, or retrieve article, is in our hand.
Shaping
Shaping involves clicking or marking small increments of effort/behaviour toward the final desired behaviour.
It is probably one of the most effective methods of training as the dog is very much involved in the learning process. They must work out how to get the click, which makes it very powerful and memorable learning for them.
We often use shaping for teaching a dog to get on a place board. First, you will click and pay the dog for looking at it, then for sniffing it, then for walking towards it, then for putting a foot on it, then for putting both front feet on it, then for putting three feet on it, and finally for putting all four feet on it.
Luring
Luring involves teaching the dog to follow a hand lure to create the final desired behaviour.
It is one of the most common methods, but it is often fraught with errors that interfere with your dog's learning.
To start, you will have a piece of food held in the tips of your fingers and thumb, and your dog will follow. They should not be mouthing or licking your fingers, and their nose should be following the scent trail of the food rather than trying to grab it.
After you have clicked the behaviour you want, drop the food into the palm of your hand, open it and offer it to your dog. Over time, your hand creating that shape, but without food in it, will become a hand lure on its own, and reinforcement can be given after the click.
Modelling
Modelling is also an effective form of training behaviour when taught ethically, but can be open to abuse where a dog is physically placed or forced into a position or action.
Taught ethically and thoughtfully, it is an excellent resource for achieving certain results, for example, lining up in heel position. It requires the skill of a good clicker trainer to do this well, so we would recommend seeking professional help for this method of teaching.
Targeting
Targeting is similar to luring, but with objects used as targets instead of your hand.
We would first use shaping or luring to add value to a target and then use the target to get other behaviour.
A good example of this is continuing the use of a place board. We would first ‘shape’ the dog getting onto the board before adding a cue. We could then use this to help teach our dog to run out in a straight line, to show them where the heel position is, or to stop on the whistle.
Mimicry
While a bit abstract, mimicry still deserves its place in this list of how to get behaviour.
Never underestimate how much dogs are watching each other, and how often they will attempt to copy behaviour around them.
When we want our dogs to settle, for instance, it is important for us to think about our body language and whether we appear to be settled. Equally, in gundog training terms, if a dog is unconfident on blind retrieves or unsure about entering water, it is amazing how quickly this can be changed after watching other dogs perform the desired behaviour.
Pressure
Pressure is often used in a rather intimidating way, for example, leaning towards the dog to get a sit or using sharp turns into the dog during heel work, which we do not recommend.
We do, however, find it to be very useful if the dog is in control of the pressure because they can learn how to take it off. Think about lead work, for instance, if your dog pulls forward, making the lead tight, you can stand still and simply keep hold of the lead without increasing or decreasing any pressure on it. Once your dog stops pulling and relaxes the pressure, you can then click and pay.
Your dog isn’t ignoring your cues - you’ve not finished teaching them.
When we have trained a behaviour and we are happy it is the final finished behaviour, we can give it a cue.
This is simply a signal that tells your dog which behaviour is likely to be rewarded. It could be a word, a whistle, a hand gesture, or something environmental. Either way, it’s something your dog learns to recognise as a prompt to do something that earns reinforcement.
This will need to be attached to the behaviour over hundreds of repetitions, and you should always be mindful that if the association between the cue and that behaviour is not reinforced regularly, then the power of the cue will eventually disappear.
When it comes to training, one of the most common complaints owners have is that their dog will sometimes ignore their cues.
Proofing and isolating cues is the process of helping your dog to learn to do a behaviour reliably, no matter where they are, what’s going on around them, or how long they need to do it for.
A helpful way to think about it is to imagine your dog’s brain as a photo album. Every time your dog successfully does a behaviour, they’re taking a photo and adding it to the album. But they can only work with what’s in that album.
So, just because your dog can sit beautifully on cue in the kitchen doesn’t mean they’ll know to do the same in the park, at a training class, or in a field full of pheasant scent.
Our job is to fill our dogs’ photo albums with as many pictures as possible of the same behaviour, but in lots of different locations, with different distractions, for different durations, and at different distances.
We also need them to distinguish and discriminate your cue from other cues. For instance, you will want your dog to understand that the cue sending them on a marked retrieve is their name, not the fall of the dummy, or the sound of shot.
Proofing and isolating the cue helps them learn, “this cue always means the same behaviour, no matter where we are or what’s happening around us”.
The more variety we give our dogs, the more confident and consistent they’ll become. And over time, all those “pictures” add up to a dog who can respond reliably, even when things get a bit more exciting or challenging.
Clean up your handling skills and develop a better approach to your dog training at our Clicker Training and Dog Handler Skills Spring Camp.
If your handling skills are standing between you and your dog training goals, Clicker Gundog / we have a special five-day camp that will help you take a different approach to your training in 2026 and beyond.
By focusing mainly on you, the handler, we will look to develop your clicker training skills, how you manage yourself and equipment during training and how you communicate what you want to your dog - all of which will improve the quality and reliability of your dog's behaviours.
Our Clicker Training and Dog Handler Skills Spring Camp, led by Helen, is suitable for all dog trainers who would like to develop their clicker training skills, whether you have just started training with your first dog for fun, or are a professional dog training instructor.
We welcome all breeds of dog, of all ages (including puppies), all abilities and those involved in all dog training activities (e.g. agility, showing, gundogs, heelwork to music, obedience, rally, scentwork, hoopers, mantrailing, and more).
Expanding on many of the topics in this blog, we will cover clicker training, reinforcement management, shaping behaviour, targets, chains and sequences, cue selection and delivery, clean responses to cues, isolation of cues, temporary cues, including the benefits of changing cues and when to, how to and why to, as well as troubleshooting and how to manage errors.
For more information and to book your place, click here.
