No. Ever heard of Pavlov’s Dog? In the early 1900s, Ivan Pavlov, a Russian scientist specializing in neuro-physiology discovered what we now call Classical Conditioning: the capacity for an organism to learn to elicit involuntary behavioral responses to a neutral stimulus. In his experiment Pavlov’s Dog naturally salivated upon the presentation of meat powder. By pairing the presentation of meat powder with a neutral sound, soon the neutral sound caused the dog to salivate without the meat powder present. Clicker training is basically treat based training, food reinforcement training, where the dog learns to appreciate the sound of the clicker almost as much as a treat. Instead, we teach the animal to feel good about responding to us without the use of a clicker or treat.
