Meet Charly and Shep - today. Notice how happy Shep and Charly appear. This was not always the case. Charly tells their story here.

Shep was born 3 April 1992, which makes her (at the time of writing) nearly 11 years old.

Charly's Story

I started training Shep when she was 12 weeks old. I taught her all the basics - sit, stand, down, heel. In those days, the only "accepted" method of training was compulsive, or "jerk and praise". Shep, the cutest, fluffiest thing you've ever seen was fitted for a check chain and I was taught how to correct her "bad" behaviour (with a sharp jerk on the check chain) and how to reward when her behaviour was good.

This appeared to work well, until we got to higher levels of training and learning what I class as "non instinctive" behaviours. This included "competition level heeling", where the dog is to follow the handler around a "pattern" without verbal or physical encouragement.

Shep is an extremely sensitive dog and, as we started working on these exercises, her behaviour became worse and worse. The worse they became, the more correction I gave her. The more correction I gave her, the worse her behaviour came. I perserved this way for a good 4 years, attaining Sheps Companion Dog Title. At this point, I decided that I couldn't do more with Shep because I couldn't stand being so hard on her. Shep was approximately 4.5 years old at this time and her confidence in me and her own abilities was completely gone.

About 12 months later, Dad came home with a new fangled training technique - Clicker Training. After watching a video and listening to him "rave", I thought that there may be something in it. So, I gave it a go.

Just prior to "giving up" with Shep, I had started training a retrieve with her. Being a Working Dog, she really was only interested in chasing the dumbbell whilst it was moving - let it stop and it lost all interest. Using the "accepted" methods of training a retrieve was NOT working. In fact, bring out the dumbbell and Shep found very interesting things under the couch to look at. What an exercise to try to teach with this new method!

So, Dad showed me what to do and I tried it. Within 3 days, I had overcome Sheps inherent dislike of the Dumbbell. Within the week, she was happily "bounding" out to it, picking it, bringing it back to me and holding it until I said "give".

Needless to say, from that point on, I was a convert.

From that point, Shep and I have never looked back. She has now gained her Companion Dog Excellent title. Training commences by Shep coming to me and "asking" to be trained.

At 11, Shep is starting to compete in Agility and undertaking Utility Dog training. Whether we go further or not with her titles is immaterial. She is so happy, that I am happy.

On a final note, I'm asked "why the clicker and not the voice?". A friend summed it up nicely - "When I have the Clicker in my hand, I am looking to reward anything. If I don't have the clicker, I tend to reprimand."

To me, the Clicker wasn't just a training method for the dog - it was a training method for ME!