Dog walkers, please be watchful the week following Halloween. While dogs are never allowed chocolate, they are mysteriously drawn to it and some doggies can spot and swallow a chocolate bar wrapper, dirt and all, in seconds.

Helen Fazio and her dog Raja are world travelers. Click here to visit their blog, and click here to follow them on Twitter.

Since good timing is at the heart of any training, check out this fun reflex tester to check your timing. Experiment with different colors and see if your speed improves.

Of course, the best way to practice your training skills is by clicking your dog for good behaviors! Happy clicking, Dogsters!

Casey Lomonaco is an accomplished dog trainer and the proprietor of Rewarding Behaviors Dog Training. She contributes to PetExpertise.com and Dog Star Daily and you can follow her on Twitter here.

Fill your treat bag with uniformly sized treats. With treat hand at home base, click the dog, treat hand moving from home base into bag then deliver a treat to the dog’s mouth. Repeat until you are comfortable with both hands, and until your dog is eagerly looking to you for reinforcement following each click.

Casey Lomonaco is an accomplished dog trainer and the proprietor of Rewarding Behaviors Dog Training. She contributes to PetExpertise.com and Dog Star Daily and you can follow her on Twitter here.

Once you feel comfortable with the clicker, work on your timing. There is a great video on www.clickertraining.com of author Tia Guest’s dog sitting. Watch the video and practice clicking, then delivering a treat to the cup after you click each sit, always making sure that your treat hand is at “home base” until after the click.

When your timing is good with the video, move on to the next step – putting it all together.

Casey Lomonaco is an accomplished dog trainer and the proprietor of Rewarding Behaviors Dog Training. She contributes to PetExpertise.com and Dog Star Daily and you can follow her on Twitter here.

One cup will be filled with treats, the other cup will be empty. Start with treat hand at “home base,” then grab one treat from the cup, deposit into the empty cup. Practice with both hands. Your treat hand should go back to home base after you deposit each treat into the cup. Repeat the process, this time taking treats from a treat bag and delivering them to the cup.

Now practice with your dog. Treat hand starts at home base, then grabs treat from cup, deliver to dog’s mouth, back to home base each time. Practice with both hands, and practice with both the cup and treat bag until you are comfortable. Also practice dropping treats to the ground for your dog to retrieve.

Casey Lomonaco is an accomplished dog trainer and the proprietor of Rewarding Behaviors Dog Training. She contributes to PetExpertise.com and Dog Star Daily and you can follow her on Twitter here.

Casey Lomonaco is an accomplished dog trainer and the proprietor of Rewarding Behaviors Dog Training. You can follow her on Twitter here.

Capturing is a very effective, easy and dog-friendly training technique that is fun and easy for both dog and human to understand. Its applications are virtually limitless, as dogs offer thousands of behaviors every day that are just screaming for some vigilant owner to capture and put on cue. Happy capturing!

Casey Lomonaco is an accomplished dog trainer and the proprietor of Rewarding Behaviors Dog Training. You can follow her on Twitter here.

It’s important when putting “bow” on cue that you choose a cue which sounds very different from any other cues your dog responds to. For this reason, if you chose the word “down” as your cue for lying down, you should probably not use the word “bow” for the play bow, the two words sound too much alike. For female dogs, consider using “curtsy.” A good cue for male dogs is “gentleman!”

Casey Lomonaco is an accomplished dog trainer and the proprietor of Rewarding Behaviors Dog Training. You can follow her on Twitter here.

Capturing downs works exactly the same way as capturing sits. Observe your dog and click as his elbows hit the ground (click for the movement of laying down – if he is already laying down, you missed your opportunity). Keep records of this also… did your dog pick the second captured behavior up more quickly than the first?

Casey Lomonaco is an accomplished dog trainer and the proprietor of Rewarding Behaviors Dog Training. You can follow her on Twitter here.