In 2018, I wrote a post titled “My Dog Is Afraid of the Clicker. What Should I Do?” I told the sad story of how I scared a dog with the clicker, then scared her even more by following the standard advice to remedy the situation. In the post, I did something I rarely do, which was to give straight-up advice. I advised people whose dogs were afraid of the clicker to switch to a verbal marker if they really needed a marker, and to leave the click sounds alone for a bit while they determined the extent of the dog’s fears.

I stand by that advice. And now I am going to show you why switching to a quieter mechanical click is not enough of a change to remediate some dogs’ fear.