1. sit
2. down (lay down)
3. roll over
4. ring the bell (to go outside)
5. shut it (shuts the refrigerator or cabinet door)
6. stay
7. come
8. enough (stop whatever she's doing)
9. jump (jumps through a hoop or onto a foot stool)
10. go to bed (she goes to, walks into and sits down in her crate)

I taught Molly to do all of the above using a clicker and following Karen Pryor's 74 page easy to read guide to "Clicker Training Dogs". Trust me when I say that if you have a small amount of patience, determination and your Cairn likes to learn new things like most Cairn Terriers do, you too can train your Cairn to do any of the above and much more.

If you buy Karen's book through my link below, she'll send you a free clicker with your book.

Instead of repeating Karen's clicker training techniques here, I'd rather let you buy the book (very affordable) and read for yourself how easy it is. The only training that the clicker didn't seem to work with Molly was housebreaking, although she knew what I meant when I said "get busy" and if she has to go, she will usually go now that she's an adult and a little less bullheaded.

To my surprise the very first thing Molly learned during her clicker training was how to ring a bell. I placed a desktop call bell beside the door for her to ring when she wants to go outside. This to me would have been one of the hardest tasks to teach a dog, but it was the first thing she picked up on. Do you know how long it took her to learn? She was ringing the bell within 15 minutes and she was only 4 months old at the time.

That is the power of the clicker. Clicker training is based on positive reward system using mini treats, praise, toys, or whatever your Cairn will respond to and within milliseconds clicking the clicker to let the dog know exactly the moment when they did what it was you wanted them to do.

Before you practice with your Cairn, you'll want to practice the technique yourself. The key is to click instantly when the behavior you want is done - not before or not after. In that way the Cairn is positive that what they did at the very second will be rewarded in the future if they do it again.

Let me tell just how powerful clicker training can be. You saw from the list of things above that Molly learned a great deal. All of these behaviors were learned by her before she reached the age of 6 months. So within two months she was doing all of these tasks with ease.

When I went from one practice review session of something she already knew like "ring the bell" to something new like "jump" and she wasn't quite sure what I wanted her to do yet, she'd go through most of the commands on the list stated above trying to get me to click!

Seriously, it is a comical moment when your Cairn will sit, lay down, rollover, ring the bell, tap a cabinet door all within a matter of seconds just to see which action is the one you want her to learn. She was waiting for that click!

You've got to love the Cairn Terrier breed. They are cute, comical and so darn smart!

See my related article, "Clicker Training DVDs and Videos"