Reaction Time

One of the things we clicker trainers must do is see behavior and be timely.  Obviously we want to be as accurate as possible, so the dog knows what we are trying to say with our clicks.  There's always a lag time and while some people are able to click in under one-tenth of a second (you know they are playing a lot of computer games), the average person is going to be .215 seconds late.

This is because your brain has to process what you see and then there is still, on average, a .130 second lag time between the decision to click and the time it takes for the nerve impulse to go from your eye, through your brain to your thumb.  One of the reasons we use a clicker is because it is so much faster (and thus more accurate) than the significantly longer time it takes to say a click-word.  That impulse has to travel from you eye, through your brain, through the speech center of your brain, then to your mouth and finally for all the parts of your mouth, tongue, vocal cords and breath to come together and form a word.

If you want to know how fast your reaction time is, you can click on this link: Reaction Time Test   I found out that I'm completely average and indeed came right in at 215 milliseconds.

The good news is that we can improve our time by carefully watching our dogs, because as you become familiar with how your dog moves and behaves, you can predict that clickable moment.  In any case, the clicker gurus all agree that in terms of the final result and how long it takes to get there, its always better to click early, rather than late.

So what's your score?

Our New Game

I taught Gimme the names to a few of her toys, with more to come.  Ball (her black rubber Kong ball) and Flossy (a frayed rope toy) are the  most solid.  I ask her to get one for me, by name, and reward when she brings them.  She carries one or the other around a lot, so she is often leaving them in some part of the house.   That entertains her as she goes looking for them.

A couple weeks ago, I started sneakily, pushing them behind things or setting things in front of them, so they weren't visible unless she got to the right spot.  I expected she would just keep "looking" for them and investigate more extensively.  Instead I noticed that after she visually scanned all the rooms in the house and didn't find them, then she started air scenting for them.  Naturally with that keen nose, she always finds them.

Today I put her in the office and then hid her ball in a deep box.  When I let her out, it took her awhile, but she still found it.  The first time she walked by the box and sniffed, she didn't detect it, but ten minutes later when she sniffed in that area, she caught it and homed right in on the ball.  It probably took that long for the ball smell to drift up and out of that narrow steep-sided  box.  She couldn't actually get to the ball, so whined at me until I helped her and she's been proudly carrying it around ever since.

I'm just amazed at her persistence.  When we first started this game, she'd look for about two minutes and then if she didn't find the one I'd cued for, she would offer the other one to me.  This time she spent close to fifteen minutes looking for her Kong ball without giving up, even though Flossy was in plain sight.  I could have actually accomplished something in that amount of time, if I hadn't been so fascinated watching her search.

When I get that confidence and persistence applied to our competitive behaviors, this kid will be unstoppable...