Entrevista

A Melissa Alexander

DogSports-how did you get involve in Clicker Training?

Melissa Alexander -Clicker training appealed both to my positive nature and to the science geek inside me.Ihad a professional background training people.During the past seven years, I have taught classes and private lessons bothin person and online, created and maintained the ClickerSolutions Web siteand mailing list, written a book on clicker training, and clicker trainedthree dogs and three horses.

DS-why do you think its taking so much for some trainers to catch up?

MA- It takes time to learn to train well enough. and for some people as long as those methods are working for them, they would have no reason to jump into clicker training. Gradually, though, people new to training and people for whom the old methods didn't work all the time, are finding clicker training. As timepasses, there will be a more established clicker support system, and therewill be an established history of people succeeding in competitions with clicker training. Then you will see more and more clicker trained dogs competing.

DS-What would be your best tip for a trainer?
MA- Practice without your dog. If you're going to work on a new behavior, partof the challenge is to figure out how you're going to hold the clicker,where you're going to position the dog, how you'll handle the leash andother tools, and where you're going to keep the treats and which hand you'lluse to dispense them. Work all that out before you add your dog to the equation. Work it out, and practice until you can click and treat 10 times in 15 seconds. I won't try it with my dog until I'm fast and fluent. Rate of reinforcement is way too important for me to slow it down due to myown fumbling!

DS- why http://www.clickersolutions.com/?

MA- My friend Debbie Otero and I started ClickerSolutions. I knew that there were hundreds of newbies who didn'tknow that there were alternatives to punishment. So we started ClickerSolutions to focus on those alternatives. So I put my energy into the Web site and mailing list.

Thank you Melissa

p.s. Melissa Alexander is a writer and clicker trainer in Seattle, WA. She owns the highly popular ClickerSolutions mailing list and is the author of Click for Joy, the award-winning, essential guide to clicker training.