Thanks for the info. Few questions:
1. What advantage does the clicker have over simply praising the dog, saying "Good dog!" and giving him a treat when he does the behavior correctly?
2. If you use the clicker how do you correct bad behavior? How does the dog know that 'No" means no?
The way our trainer taught it, the click can pin point the exact behavior your training. For instance, when we're training Bear to touch our outstretched hand with his nose (versus his teeth
or worse - jumping on us), w/o the clicker Bear wouldn't be able to figure out if his treat came for standing, for sitting, for smelling, for licking, for looking at us, for touching us with his nose, etc. With the clicker, as soon as his nose touched my hand, Click!
My trainer is 100% against the word "no". I'm 50% in aggrement with her. However, Bear knows "no" means don't do that. He's been taught "no bite" (though sometimes I can't get through his land shark feeding frenzy). When I tell Bear "no", I immediately follow it with a command so I can praise his good behavior.
The trainer see clicker training as a way to classically condition the dog. action = treat. Since the dog is extremely intelligent, with enough training (and often refresher courses) the dog will create a list of rewarding behavior - sitting, lying down, being calm, walking nicely, etc - and a list of non-rewarding behaviors (barking, jumping, biting, etc). If list A = treat and list B = nothing; the dog will begin choosing to give you actions from list A.