What is Marker Training?

Marker training is a simple way of dog training that communicates with the dog what behavior is correct and desired by the handler.

Marker training provides the dog trainer a language that allows him to communicate with his dog. You relay these three messages to your dog whenever you use marker training: 

• With a mark, you are praising the dog "the instant" they do something favorable.

• The mark also provides a motivational method of encouraging the dog to continue what they are currently doing.

• By withholding a mark, you are telling the dog (without any punishment) that you don't like what they are doing.

The 5 Magic Words of Marker Training1. "Ready"

 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.

2. "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.

3. "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.

4. "Nope" or "No"

 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."

5. "Done" or "Break"

 or  (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.