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Lilly, a 10-month-old yellow Labrador retriever, is standing at attention, her body alert. In front of her is her trainer, and Lilly knows she has a treat.

The two remain motionless, eyes locked, until Lilly suddenly sits down. Just as her rump touches the floor, there's a "click" and the trainer gives Lilly the treat.

It's called clicker training. The clicker is a piece of plastic, about an inch long, with a button that you can depress to make a clicking sound.

The trainer is Merope (pronounced my-ROPE-pee) Pavlides, who spends summers at her home on Smith Mountain Lake and the rest of the year in Baltimore. She dropped by the Roanoke Valley SPCA recently to teach a two-day class on clicker training for the shelter staff and volunteers.

"We're exploring all aspects of training; trying to be open-minded to all methods," said Faye Hicks, Lilly's owner and the animal behaviorist at the SPCA. She adopted Lilly from the shelter.

Hicks first met Pavlides two years ago, shortly after Hicks started working at the SPCA. Pavlides -- a certified pet dog trainer who has a dog training company, Compliant Canines LLC, in Maryland -- started volunteering for the Roanoke shelter in the summer, teaching clicker training classes and evaluating dogs for adoption.

Hicks said the SPCA is interested in clicker training because it teaches the shelter animals consistent behavior in a stressful environment.

Pavlides and her students walk through the runs and click and treat each animal that's quiet. If a dog is barking, they click and treat its neighbor, who's quiet. Then when the barking dog is silent, they click and treat it. Pavlides says it not only gives the dogs positive reinforcement of the desired behavior, but it also keeps the stress level down, which helps make the animals more adoptable.

Pavlides has been training shelter dogs for nearly 20 years. She says that in 1988, most trainers used choke chains and other adverse types of training. She found the results disappointing -- most of the learning wasn't long term and it created fear in some dogs.

When Pavlides went back to school and got a master's degree in special education so she could work with children who have autism, she realized positive reinforcement could apply to training dogs as well.

After attending several workshops by Karen Pryor, one of the founders of clicker training, Pavlides says she "got it."

"I really started to understand the principles of using the clicker. That it's not just the marker but it's also about trying to get the dog to think instead of just obey a command," Pavlides said. "Once I got that, then it opened up a whole new world for me in terms of dog training."

Now she primarily does clicker training in her obedience classes in Maryland.

Dogs aren't the only animals that can be clicker trained. Pavlides says people have also trained cats, horses, parrots and exotic animals. Some dogs shy away from the clicker at first because of the noise, but after a few times hearing the sound paired with the treat, Pavlides says dogs understand the sound isn't so scary.

As an example, she brings in Fiona, a dog who's so scared her hindquarters quiver. Fiona shows no interest in treats or the people in the room. The students in the class get her accustomed to the clicker by clicking whenever she shows interest in someone and walks over to be petted. When she's over her fear, the training can progress to include a "sit" and "down." Pavlides says she's never found a dog that had a negative experience to clicker training.

But just using a clicker doesn't make you a clicker trainer.

"A clicker trainer is somebody who really tries to use the clicker, shaping behaviors, capturing behaviors, asking the dog to try to think about what you want, as opposed to just telling the dog what you want and clicking," Pavlides said.

She said owners can learn how to clicker train their own dogs. "The most important thing and the thing that takes the most practice is timing, so that the click marks precisely as the behavior is wrapping up."

Sometimes it can be just a split-second difference. For instance, if the dog sits down, turns its head and then it hears a click, it will think it needs to turn its head every time to get the treat.

Returning to Lilly, the canine already knows how to sit. But Pavlides wants Lilly to remember how she got the treat the last time and what she must do to get it again.

Lilly tries jumping up, but the trainer just pulls the treat away. Then the dog reaches up and paws Pavlides' arm. Again, no treat. It's not until Lilly displays the correct behavior that she hears the click and gets the treat. The next time around, Lilly sits more quickly.

Lesson learned.