A target stick gives dog trainers a way to direct a dog’s attention by luring, instead of physically coaxing and pushing our dogs. It’s very effective, even more so when it’s only used for teaching.
Soon after “charging the clicker,” you should introduce your dog to the target stick.
Target Sticks Guide a Dog’s Attention,
Clickers Signal Your Dog’s Success!
How to Teach Your Dog About the Target Stick
Like any kind of dog training, you’ll start easy and work your way up. Rewarding slight success at the beginning builds encouragement and understanding. Once your dog is “into” the lesson, you introduce new things, with success building on success, until your dog has mastered the entire trick or command.
The purpose of the target stick is to get your dog to follow the stick so that his nose is always touching it during a training or practice lesson. It will take anywhere between a couple of days, to a couple of weeks, to prime your dog’s understanding of the target stick.
Step By Step: Introducing the Target Stick
- Hold the target stick so the tip is a few inches away from your dog’s nose. If your dog shows any interest, such as glancing at or licking the target stick, give a click and a treat.
- Gradually begin to withhold the click and treat unless your dog moves his head toward the target stick.
- Then, withhold the rewards until your dog touches his nose to the tip of the target stick. Sometimes people smear a treat on the tip of the target stick to give the dog an incentive, but most dogs can learn the right response without that.
- Once your dog is touching the target stick with his nose, you’ll start to move the stick and wait for him to touch it again. Also, practice the touch behavior with your dog in different positions and places. As you introduce each new challenge, insist that your dog meet that challenge before he earns your praise, the click, and the treat. When adding challenges in this step, give your dog enough practice with one new element before adding another.
- Then, have your dog follow the target stick with his nose while you move it.
- Once that’s mastered, teach your dog to touch his nose to the target stick while it’s laying idle on the floor.
- After your dog has learned to touch the target stick with his nose in all the above situations, it’s time to start using a command phrase. “Touch” is a good training command for the basic target stick behavior. Say “touch” the instant before you show your dog the target stick. Do all the other training steps the same as above; just add the command word right before you present the target stick before each repetition.
After you’ve repeated each of those until your dog “gets it,” you’re ready to use the target stick for teaching cool dog tricks.
Other Notes about Teaching the Target Stick
- Don’t start using the command phrase for touching the target stick until you are confident your dog will always touch it.
- You don’t have to actually buy a specially-made target stick, but it helps if the object is kept aside especially for training.
- To make sure your dog understands you’re teaching him about the target stick, make sure to practice with it in different locations.
- You’ll keep the target stick for new lessons; once you’ve taught a dog trick, you’ll phase out the target stick.
- Once you’re using the command word “touch” to have your dog put his nose to the target stick, you will only reward your dog for touching his nose to the tip.
Troubleshooting the Target stick
If your dog isn’t learning how to respond to the target stick after a couple weeks, here are some tips that can help.
- Smear peanut butter or cream cheese on the tip. (Never feed chocolate to a dog!)
- Hide a treat under the tip of the target stick, and click when he touches the stick to get the treat.
Most dogs learn the target stick just fine using the step-by-step methods above. Have fun! Once your dog understands the target stick, you can begin teaching dog tricks such as how to spin.
Return to the teaching dog tricks.