I dunno, I'm a big fan of teaching a dog to pay attention to you and listen when you give commands. If you let them get away with it, they learn to ignore you. I'm not saying to punish the dog, by any means, I'm just saying, they'll never learn what you're asking of them if you don't enforce what you want them to do. For example, if I ask my dog to sit and she ignores me, without repeating the command, I will get her into the sit position then praise her, "Good sit, Penny! What a great sit that is!" Once she learns she'll get praise for doing what I ask of her, she is much more attentive when I ask her to do something.
Thats one of the main problems with discussing things in a forum like this. People mistake your meaning if you don't go into great detail explaining things. If you were in one of my training classes you could see what I mean in about 3 minutes.
I don't let the dog ignore me. I just don't make a big deal out of them not doing what I ask. (BTW: I don't give commands, rather cues.) I regain the dogs attention and begin again. I NEVER fuss at a dog for not doing what I ask. The greatest majority of the time, they don't do it because I mistakenly gave a cue when they weren't paying attention. Getting attention should be the first thing a trainer learns how to do when he becomes a trainer and giving attention should be the first thing a dog is taught even before "sit".
In your case, the clicking would be the praise, I guess.
No, the treat is praise. The click merely says, "what you are doing this very instant in time has just earned you a treat. You performed the correct behavior in a manner that makes me happy." This is what makes the clicker so valuable. Its much easier for the dog to understand what he is supposed to do if he hears a consistant sound the very instant he is performing correctly.
I like to reinforce the command without giving it a million times.
My biggest pet peve in dog training and its one of the most difficult things to teach a client. I only give a CUE one time. Early in learning a behavior, I may lure more times but the voice cue is only given one time. Later after the dog has more or less learned the behavior if its not performed with the first cue, I hesidate 5 or 6 seconds to give him a chance to think, then turn my back and walk away. That has great meaning to a dog. Much more than jerking on a leash.
Most of the time, if a positively trained dog doesn't understand what his is supposed to do, will try something even if it's wrong because he knows there are no consequences to doing wrong. He will do something that got him a click/treat before.
I see so many people tell their dog to stay, then while they walk away repeat it over and over, "Stay. Stay. Stay. Stay" the whole friggin time, and it really bugs me. So in my case, I'll put Penny in a stay then say, "Good stay Penny. What a great stay that is, good girl!" so she is getting positively reinforced for the behavior rather than being commanded the entire time. *shrug* works well for me.
I have no problem with that. I prefer not to put my hands on a dog to put him in a sit or any other position.
But I really don't like to let them get away with not performing the command on the fist time I ask it. I want to give the command once, not tell the dog to do something several times until they finally get bored of me blathering on at them and do it on accident.
I think maybe you don't understand what turning around and walking away from a dog does to him when you have been giving him all kinds of attention and all of a sudden you take that away. You only walk 3 or 4 steps away, pause a few seconds, then return and begin again. It works wonders (to coin a phrase).
We are not really that far apart.