In technical terms, marker training is operant conditioning. Operant conditioning has been around for years. It is how dolphins are trained at SeaWorld.
Operant conditioning forms an association between a behavior and a consequence.
I can see new dog trainers reading this and shaking their heads thinking “Duh, isn’t that pretty obvious and what all dog training is about?”
My answer to that is “YES” but let’s go into a little more detail.
When a dog exhibits a behavior we like, we give them a high-value reward. That reward is either a high-value food treat or a high-value toy that the dog really loves. In marker training, if a dog does not perform a behavior, the consequence is “No Reward”. This is called a negative reinforcer. When a dog gets a negative reinforcer, it must then repeat the exercises if it wants to get the high-value reward.
In old-school dog training, the consequence of a negative behavior was a correction.
No matter what anyone ever tells you, dogs do things for themselves. Dogs don’t do things to make you feel good. They do things to make themselves feel good. They do things because they are motivated towards feeling comfortable in addition to doing things that eliminate feeling discomfort. This is a profound concept and one that pet owners often miss. Pet owners or new dog trainers are often led to believe that dogs will eventually do things to make their owners feel good. The reality is that this is seldom, if ever, the case.
So the key to operant conditioning is to teach a dog that when he performs a behavior that we like, he gets a reward that makes him feel good. The reward gives him a level of comfort. This reward can either be in the form of food, a toy he loves, or playing a game with the handler that he enjoys. In all my years of dog training, I have only known one dog that would work strictly for handler praise.
In the marker training system, there are only two consequences to a behavior that we are trying to train. There is either a reward or no reward. Which consequence happens depends on the behavior the dog exhibits to a stimulus. A stimulus can be a command or a cue (or lure) from the handler.
For dogs to associate a behavior with a reward or punishment, the reward or punishment must come immediately after the behavior. We tell people the consequence should come within a 1/2 second of the behavior. If a reward comes 5 seconds after a behavior, the dog has no idea why he is getting a reward. If a new dog owner comes home and finds a pile of dog poop in his kitchen and he proceeds to rub the dog’s nose in it, that dog still doesn’t have a clue why he is getting punished.
Now if the same dog has been on a leash in the kitchen and peed on the floor and the handler had scolded him the instant he saw the dog pee, the dog would associate the scolding with peeing because it came within 1/2 second of the behavior.
In training, it is not always possible to reward within a 1/2 second. In fact, no matter how hard you try, you cannot consistently reward a dog within a 1/2 second. To get around this, we bridge (or connect) the time frame between the behavior and the consequence that follows. This bridge allows us to extend the 1/2 second rule of consequences. That bridge is a word. We will call it a Marker. I like to use the word YES. Other people use other words. Many people use the sound from a clicker. You can use any word or sound you are comfortable with so long as you are consistent.
The marker is basically a way of telling your dog, “Hold on a second. I like what you just did and I am going to give you a high-value reward.”
There are positive and negative markers. The word for a negative Marker is “NO” or “NOPE.” It is important to mention that a negative marker is not a correction. It is simply a way of communicating to the animal that he just made a mistake and if he expects to get that high-value reward, he needs to redo the behavior correctly.
Through repetition, the dog learns that every time he hears the positive marker, he gets a reward. Every time he hears the negative marker, he does not get a reward and he has to repeat the behavior or exercise.
Dogs that are trained with markers become problem-solvers. They have learned (through the concept of negative reinforcement) that when one behavior doesn’t work, they need to try something else, and if that doesn’t work, they just keep trying because if they try long enough, they have a good chance of figuring out what you want and getting a high-value reward
The system allows trainers to reinforce correct behavior with “pinpoint accuracy” from a distance. It also allows dogs to make mistakes and then learn from their mistakes. The beauty of the system is that it also allows us to pinpoint the exact moment a dog makes a mistake, without correcting the dog in the process.
This is radically different from old-school dog training where dogs are corrected for doing something wrong. I remember the day when we would take an untrained dog and march down the street with the dog on a leash. We would do a quick left turn, right turn, or about turn as we said “HEEL” and give the dog a correction for not staying by our side. When I stop and think about it, how unjust was this to my dogs? It was a terrible way to train. It created dogs that were afraid to try and think on their feet because if they made a mistake, they would get a correction.
Training with markers is a simple concept to understand. It only takes a few minutes to explain why it works but it can take years to master. The journey is exciting and well worth the trip. Along the way, you will find that your dogs are a lot smarter than you once thought.
Those days are long gone with marker trainers.
The 5 Magic Words of Marker Training
READY or ARE YOU READY? is a word that tells our dog that we are about to start a training session. When you ask your dog if he is ready, you always have something on you to reward the dog with when he engages with you or starts to offer behaviors.
As your dog gains experience, you should never start training unless the dog demonstrates he is ready to play when you take him out. This is engagement. Getting engagement from a dog is a learned skill.
If he won’t play, then handlers need to put the dog away and think about what they need to do to get the dog engaged the next time they bring him out.
The relationship between you and your dog is more important than training. So if your dog isn’t engaged with you, if he doesn’t feel like playing today, then you should not try and teach him behaviors or exercises. Put him away or take him for a walk.
If you are having problems with engagement, I highly recommend you get our Training Dogs with Food DVD (or course). We have an entire chapter that teaches how to get engagement and a second chapter on how to socialize a dog to environmental stressors.
An interesting thing that seems to happen when dogs are trained to understand engagement is they view their handler as their own personal treat dispenser. In their eyes, they simply have to do this silly little exercise to make you give them a high-value treat or a toy.
YES is the word we use as a positive marker. It’s the word we use to bridge the time frame between a favorable behavior and us delivering a reward. Once the dog has been introduced to the concept of YES (we call this ‘charging the mark’), they quickly learn that every time you say YES, they know they are going to get the reward. With experience, they learn that this can take 3 or 4 seconds if you are not right next to them when you say YES.
It is important that trainers understand that YES is not verbal praise. Trainers new to markers commonly misunderstand the difference between a marker word and praise. They need to learn that they can mark the moment with a YES and then praise the dog with GOOD BOY.
When a trainer who gets excited says “YES, YES, YES, YOU’RE A GOOD BOY”, they only confuse the dog because in effect, they are marking three moments in time. We will talk more about this later.
YES is also a word that is used as a release command when the dog does something correctly. This means YES not only tells the dog that what he just did was correct, it also tells the dog that he can stop doing what he is doing and he is now free to interact with you to get his food reward, to play tug, or to chase a toy, etc.
GOOD is a word that means “I like what you are doing, and I want you to continue to do what you are doing.”
In other words, GOOD is the word we use to add duration to a command. A perfect example would be to use GOOD when we are teaching the dog to stay in the down position. When we teach duration for the down, we would not mark with a YES because that mark is a release. If we used YES instead, that would mean we just gave the dog permission to get up and get his reward.
So new trainers need to understand that GOOD is not a release command. When we say GOOD, the dog needs to understand that he should continue doing what he is doing and that he will get a reward at some point in the future.
Unlike YES, when we first start training the duration marker, we can say GOOD a number of times in a row. We can say GOOD GOOD GOOD as many times as we need to get the dog to continue to do what he is doing.
NOPE is a word that is used as a negative marker. It means, “You just made a mistake and you have to do the exercise all over again.” It does not mean we are mad. It does not mean that he is going to get a correction. It only means that he needs to repeat what we expected him to do if he really wants the high-value reward.
If the reward is high enough in value to the dog, it doesn’t take a dog long to figure out that NOPE means “DO IT AGAIN.”
DONE or BREAK (as in “take a break”) is the word that tells the dog that our training session is finished for now. The session can be finished for 5 minutes or it can mean we are done for the day.
When we say DONE, the food or toys are put away. When the handler says DONE or BREAK and shows his dog his empty hands, it doesn’t take long for the dog to know that this training session is over.
With time this becomes very clear to our dog.
The beauty of marker training is that we can clearly tell a dog by using READY that we are going to start training and with DONE we are finished with training. It becomes very clear to the dog when we expect him to work.
Don’t Confuse Your Dog – Only Say “YES” One Time
The reason you should only say YES one time is because dogs see life as a series of pictures or snapshots. Remember how intuitive our dogs are. They know exactly what they were doing at the exact moment good things happen to them.
So when they look into your eyes and you mark that moment by saying YES followed by a high-value food treat, they quickly figure out the trigger to get you to give them another treat is to look into your eyes.
But when trainers get excited and say YES 4 or 5 times in a row, they confuse their dog. The dog doesn’t know if they got rewarded for looking in your eyes or if the reward came from lowering their head to look at your hand or for something else.
Charging the Mark
When we talk about “charging the mark”, we are talking about the introductory training session where we teach our dog that YES means it is getting a high-value treat.
We start this system with food instead of toys. Many high-drive dogs can’t focus in the presence of a toy. They go into a zone where they can’t think. This doesn’t happen with food so we set the foundation of markers with food before introducing toy rewards.
Charging the mark can be done anywhere, in your kitchen, your basement, or your backyard. The goal of “charging the mark” is to teach the dog to associate hearing YES with knowing he is going to get a high-value reward.
When we start “charge the mark” training, the dog does not have to do anything to get marked. We simply say YES or click the clicker and give the dog a food treat. He doesn’t have to sit, he doesn’t have to come to us, he doesn’t have to do anything. We just say YES and feed the dog. Do this again and again so that they associate the word YES with a reward.
With that said, there are a few things you have to look out for when charging the mark. It is important that the word YES is never said at the same instant you move your arm to reach for the food treat. For marker training to work, there must be a short lapse in time between saying the word YES and moving the arm to produce the food reward. If you move your arm at the same time as saying YES, your dog will start thinking that your arm movement is what gets him the treat and not the YES.
You will know your dog is getting it when you say YES and the dog looks at you like HEY, GIVE ME THAT TREAT! Most dogs pick up the concept of a charged YES or charged CLICK within the first training session. If you go out and say YES to a dog 30 to 50 times in a row, he is going to connect the dots.
Not Giving a Mark is Valuable Information to Your Dog
Don’t underestimate your dog’s understanding of your silence. When you don’t offer any mark (by being silent), you are simply telling the dog to that it has not yet performed the behavior you want. It is simply a non-stressful way to tell your dog he needs to “keep trying”.
Dogs are Masters at Reading Body Language
Dogs are far more intuitive than we humans. They are always watching us and they instinctually recognize situations and read us like a book. They know when we are happy and they know when to leave us alone. They base ALL of their life’s decisions on what reinforces their level of comfort and what satisfies their pack instincts.
New dog trainers mistakenly think their dogs listen to them all the time. They think the dog automatically knows when commands are given. The fact is that dogs may listen but they don’t naturally pick up on our every word. In fact, trained dogs don’t understand much of what we say. But they are very intuitive about reading and recognizing specific situations or pictures (of our body language). They are so good at this that we think they know what we are saying when in fact, they don’t have a clue.
A perfect example of this is a dog that learns to sit in your kitchen. The dog can perform the sit exercise 200 times in the kitchen and you may think he has that concept of the SIT command down pat. Then you take him into your garage and say SIT and he looks at you like you are a man on the moon speaking Swahili. He acts like you have two heads and he has never heard the word SIT before.
A better example is when the dog has always been given the SIT command when you are standing in front of him in the kitchen. Simply turning your back and saying SIT results in a blank stare. Sometimes when you are kneeling down or sitting on the floor, you can say SIT and still get no result.
That is because the dog does not understand the concept of SIT. He doesn’t know what you are asking him to do. You may think he knows the word SIT but what he really knows is that when he sees the picture of you standing in front of him in the kitchen, he should SIT.
So when you see a dog do this, you need to know that your dog has not yet grasped the concept of the verbal SIT command.
Marker training is going to teach you how to communicate with your dog so they can understand your commands in a way that the dog enjoys.
Written by Ed Frawley
Florida Puppies 