Your Dog Isn’t Thick-You Might Just Need A Better Understanding Of Markers

00:00 — Kati Peppe introduces Off Leash and Unfiltered and asks listeners to subscribe.

Welcome to Off Leash and Unfiltered. Trigger warning. I'm Kati Peppe, delivering the truth in dog training.

Hey everybody, this is your host, Kati Peppe. Before we jump in, I just wanted to take a quick second and remind you to hit the subscribe button because that helps us so, so, so much. We appreciate every subscribe and follow, and we have so much valuable information we wanna share with you. So we don't want you to miss an episode. Without further ado, let's jump in. Hey everybody, thanks for being here with me today. Uh, before we get started, just wanna take a second and remind you that you can write in if there are certain topics you'd really like to, um, hear discussed on the show.

So you can do that via the fan mail or you can send me an email directly, and all that information is in the show notes for you. So would love to hear from you. That way I don't need to spend hours just scratching my head going, what the hell do I talk about <laugh>?

So really more or less, I'm asking you to do my job for me, <laugh>. But no, seriously, I'd really, uh, really appreciate hearing from you guys. Um, 'cause I wanna know what you wanna hear and that's the stuff we'll talk about on the show. So take a second, jump down to the show notes, send me an email and let me know what you wanna, what you wanna hear about, and then we'll do that. All right, so today we're gonna talk about an extremely, extremely essential piece of your dog training. And it's a piece of dog training that most people aren't using very well.

I'm not gonna say they're not using it because they actually, most people are, but they're using it very poorly. Um, and most people still manage to teach their dogs things, um, right? So it's not as though if you're not perfect at this, you can't actually train your dog, but it will take you a lot longer.

You'll really drag the process out because you're being a lot less precise. And you know, I said this, I think, on the last episode, but we cover a lot of heavy stuff, um, on the show. We talk about a lot of serious incidents and we talk about a lot of serious behavioral issues and we talk a lot about corrections and punishment because it's just the hardest stuff to find the truth on and get the information about. Um, but there's so many other pieces to dog training, um, that are important. I wanna make sure we cover those too.

And I know I mentioned on the last episode that we would, or one of my most recent episodes, I'm not sure if it was the last one, that we would cover, uh, markers. And so that's what we're gonna talk about today, are markers. And guys, markers help you convey information to your dog in an effective and efficient way, so it makes your training so much better.

Uh, so really, really important. And I wanna talk about the use of markers. Um, first of all, I wanna talk about what marker means, um, and how you should be using them and what should you be using as a marker. So let's dive in. There's actually a lot to cover on this topic, and if you get even a few good takeaways from this episode, and there's gonna be like a thousand golden nuggets in here, I promise. But even if you know a lot of this and you just take away a few things, I really think it's gonna give you an extra edge on your training.

It's gonna make you a lot better. Um, even if you're not a dog trainer and you're just training your own dog at home, uh, I think it goes a really long ways to just being a lot more effective. So here we are. So first of all, what do I even mean when I say marker? Well, really, your dog knows hundreds of markers most likely. So a marker is something that predicts something else.

04:00 — The doorbell illustrates how a marker predicts another event, such as a visitor entering.

So there are lots of things that are just naturally markers, right? But then there are gonna be the things that we're intentionally using as markers. So let me explain. For instance, if the doorbell rings, that's kind of a marker for your dog, that there's a guest there, there's somebody there, there's an outsider there, someone's going to come in, you're gonna open the door, all these things, right? So the doorbell's a marker for that. Um, you can have tests done to check for markers for certain diseases, right? So a marker is sort of an indicator or predictor of something else.

Um, and we use that in dog training to create a very clear and simple language with the dog, um, for instance, to help increase and decrease behaviors. So having markers also helps you with the fact that you can't always reward and punish things immediately, right?

Since a marker is a, serves as a predictor, that actually ends up buying you time in between the time when the dog did the behavior and the time when the positive or negative consequences delivered, right? Just like you can ring the doorbell or somebody can ring the doorbell, and even if it takes you a couple minutes to get to the door and let them in, the dog knows it's coming, right? Because of the marker, right? And so markers in dog training work the same way and it kind of of helps bridge the gap, right? There'd be no other way.

Not that it matters, but it's just an example. There'd be no other way for your dog to know when somebody arrived. Like, at what moment did it become true that somebody was gonna walk through that door, that somebody was there, right? The doorbell rings and then your dog.

Hopefully not, but most likely, right? A lot of dogs too gets really excited, um, or uneasy or whatever the case is. Maybe they just alert, they bark, whatever it is that they do, right? But at the moment that doorbell rang, it became true to your dog at least that somebody was at the house, somebody was coming through the door. And even if they don't come through the door immediately, your dog still knows that they're going to come through the door, right? Or that you're going to go open the door and there's gonna be somebody there.

Um, your dog knows that because they've made that association. And so we use markers that way in dog training. So if you want to be very effective with your training and you want things to go as quickly and effectively and efficiently as possible, you should learn how to use a select few markers to make that happen.

07:00 — Kati distinguishes reward, punishment, and no-reward markers, including a “wrong” marker used with puppies.

So we like to use a reward marker, a punishment marker. Those are probably the most important. So we'll often use a wrong marker that indicates no punishment or reward, right? But we're usually using that with puppies, and we're using it when they don't give us the behavior we want. And more or less, it means no reward. So it functions as a way to sort of frustrate the puppy, right? Because once they get used to earning rewards, and now you, right, they do the correct behavior and they get a reward, they do the correct behavior, and they get a reward, they do the wrong behavior and you say wrong, and there's no reward, right?

So if you have a motivated puppy, that is frustrating and motivating to them. It's not the outcome they desire. So you could say it's the absence of a consequence. You could argue that it's negative punishment in a way because it's withholding reward, right?

And that's, that's kind of why these sciencey terms don't work and don't go over real well with me is because there's actually a lot of overlap. And if you're actually able to use your brain and think critically, um, there's a lot of, there's just a lot, there's a lot of things that would qualify under more than one category. And the sciencey terms don't matter, right? But just for the sake of explanation, so you understand what I mean, we'll have one marker for reward, one marker for punishment. And then with puppies, we often have a marker that more or less means no reward, means nothing, right?

We have the same thing with older dogs, that more or less means no punishment, right? You're doing the right thing, keep doing it. And so let's talk about what those markers are. So the most important is your reward marker and your punishment marker. So for the reward marker, I strongly prefer a clicker.

Um, and people will say, well, how come you don't use one? Well, I do, but we often don't use them with adult dogs or dogs over six months. And the reason for that is because we're often jumping in with the e-collar training very, very quickly. And it's kind of a ridiculous amount of things to juggle. When you have a clicker in one hand and a remote in another hand and your rewards in your pocket and all these things going on, you got a leash, right? Because you're still in the beginning of your training. Um, that's the only reason.

But clicker is far and away my favorite choice for a reward marker. If you don't know how to use one, um, find out and try it and condition your dog to the clicker and use it, um, not forever for everything, but for anything new you're trying to teach them, certainly for any behavior you're trying to build up.

A clicker is a great tool. So we're gonna get into that and I will supply a video link in the show notes to, um, how to condition your dog to a clicker and what it looks like during the training, how to use it properly in case you want that visual. I think with topics like this, I do talk about them on the, on the podcast sometimes, but it's a lot easier for a lot of folks if they can see it in, um, video with their own eyes. So, so we'll supply a link to that. Um, reward marker usually is a clicker, right?

11:00 — Kati uses “yes” as a verbal reward marker when handling a clicker would be…

If you're not gonna use a clicker, then you can use a verbal marker. So that's what we do with the dogs in the e-collar programs that are over six months of age. Um, since it's too much to juggle, to use a clicker for us, since we're just not that coordinated. <laugh>

We use a verbal marker and we use the word yes, okay? And for a long time we didn't. And I finally said, you know what? It's kind of sloppy training to do that, um, to not have any clear verbal marker. And so we implemented that, and now we use the word yes, yes, um, as our verbal marker that predicts reward. But you should have something and something that you can be consistent with. For punishment marker, we use the word no. That's pretty easy to remember for most folks. Um, and so we use the word no and that predicts a punishment, right?

So the, the clicker or the yes predicts food, the no predicts a correction.

The other two, there's a lot of gray area there, right? So at, at a minimum, you need to have those two markers if you're going to be effective. If you wanna get more, a little more advanced and a little more effective and a little more efficient, having a wrong and a good marker are also a really good idea, right? But both of those carry no real consequence. Um, so we don't need to dive a ton into that. I will brush on that again later after we've delved into reward markers and punishment markers. I will loop back to how to tie in those more neutral markers that carry no real consequence.

Okay? So here we go. First of all, you have to condition your dog to your markers. So you could do that in real time while you're training them. But again, that's gonna be a little slower, right?

Your dog's gonna be kind of oblivious at first. They're not gonna understand the connection. It takes time for them to make the connection like it does for all associations. So we recommend giving your dog just a little head start and teaching them what your markers mean before you start using them in training. Now you don't have to, but they're just gonna be meaningless markers at first, right? Your dog's not gonna know what they are unless you teach them. So we don't spend a ton of time on that, but we will take just a few minutes and teach them what the markers are before we jump into training.

So what does that look like? Well, for your reward marker, you're simply going to give your dog the marker. Either a click or a yes, whatever you're using. And then you're gonna follow that marker with a reward.

14:00 — Choose food the dog values; Kati finds food faster than play for rewarding individual…

So something your dog is motivated for, something they really like, right? It might be, might just be their kibble. If they're very food-driven, it might be a treat that they really like. It might be a piece of chicken or something high-value like cheese, you know, whatever your dog is motivated for. Yes, you can use other things, but it's not generally my favorite. Why is that? Well, because some people like to use play, especially if they have a high-energy working type of dog who enjoys play, has a lot of drive. It's like, okay, but how long is it gonna take me to teach the dog new things if I have to stop and play with them?

Every repetition, right? It's much faster to just give a piece of food. So I don't usually use play. Yes, I'll use play as a reward, um, in a more broad sense, like after a lesson, right?

Or even halfway through a lesson, we could stop and play a little bit. But every repetition isn't really practical when you're teaching a new behavior. So I don't use that. Um, affection is fine if you have a dog that's not motivated by anything else. If they really enjoy affection, you can use that. Um, but again, we find food to be the most practical and most dogs are pretty motivated by that. If they're not, you can usually build that up. And so maybe we'll have to do an episode on that someday on how to build up food drive in your dog.

'Cause we usually manage to do that with most of the dogs that come through here. Um, not all of them. Um, but most of all, dogs have to eat, right? So if they're hungry, um, you can motivate a lot of dogs to take food during their training.

Um, a lot of dogs that are really uncomfortable, fearful, anxious might not be interested in it, and you might just have to go without, right? But in those cases, we'll use our reward marker and we'll just praise the dog. Um, pet the dog. If the dog enjoys petting, that's really critical, right? Because you could actually be punishing a behavior if your dog doesn't enjoy it. And some dogs don't. Some dogs don't like affection. Um, or they're, or if they're not familiar with you, they're not interested in having you touch them. So that's not a reward <laugh> in that case.

Um, but so you're just gonna give the marker and then you're going to reward your dog. Then you're gonna do that over and over and over again for a couple of minutes. And that's pretty simple. It's an exercise your dog is gonna love and it's very easy, right? Well, it sounds very easy, but here are the mistakes people make. They give the marker, like they click or they say yes, at the same time that they're feeding the dog. That's a mistake. So your sequence matters. So the doorbell doesn't ring when someone's coming through the door, okay?

It doesn't ring after someone's come through the door, right? If somebody walked through your door or you open the door and let somebody in and then the doorbell rang, the doorbell is not a predictor.

If you go over and you open the door and there's somebody standing there and your dog sees and goes, "Oh my God, there's somebody here." And then the doorbell rings and then they come in, you're not making the doorbell the predictor anymore. This is really important. This might sound stupid and unimportant, but this is the whole thing that makes you effective or not effective. Your sequence matters. The timing matters. So the timing of markers is critical, but because the doorbell rings and then you go open the door and someone comes in, that makes the doorbell the predictor, okay?

So when you're training your dog, if you are already reaching into your pocket or the food pouch or whatever the case may be as you say yes or click, or even before that, right? You reach into the pouch, you grab a piece of food, right?

18:00 — Reaching for food before clicking can make the hand movement, rather than the click,…

'Cause you think you're being clever, you're getting ready early, right? So you have everything else situated. Then you click and then you feed. Guess what? Your clicker is no longer the marker. Your clicker loses all of its relevance just like the doorbell would, right? Because the door already opened and there was somebody standing there before the marker happened. In this case, your hand was already grabbing the treat or the food or whatever before your marker happened. And so your marker goes completely out the window. So that might be one of the most important pieces of information we give you in this episode.

Your marker needs to come before the thing that it predicts in every way, shape or form. Even if you don't feed the dog until after you mark, he saw you reach for the food and he knows that predicts he's gonna get it. Okay? So you must not reach for your reward. This is true for the punishment marker as well. You cannot reach for your correctional tool before you mark. And let me tell you, everybody does. Everybody does. And it's sloppy training. And I'm not saying you won't get there, but it's going to take you longer.

So everyone seems to be worried about their dog being confused. This will definitely confuse them. Really, you're the one that's confused though, not the dog, right? The dog knows. Um, so make sure we don't move a muscle until after we give that marker, okay? Whether we're talking about a reward marker or a punishment marker, you don't move a muscle until after you mark. That marker needs to be the first thing in your sequence. Then after you've marked and it has actually landed on your dog's ears. So sometimes we'll actually tell people to mark, like say, like click or say yes and then count to two or even three in your head before you reach for that reward, right?

Or if we're talking about punishment, you'll say no. And then wait two or three seconds before you reach for that e-collar remote or for the leash to give a leash pop or the bonker to give a bonk.

21:00 — Mark the desired behavior as it happens to make the connection clearer.

That's really, really important. The second most important thing is your marker needs to occur during the correct behavior, right? So your dog does a thing you like, does a thing you are trying to build up, the thing you want to reward. When they do that, your marker should be as instantaneous as possible, right? Yes, there's a little leeway there, right? Most people aren't perfect and they're still managing to teach their dog things. But again, it takes longer. So the more poor your timing is with your marker, the longer it will take you to increase or decrease that behavior, right?

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And now on with the show. If you, if your dog, if you're trying to teach your dog to sit, we're just gonna take a very basic behavior for the sake of simplicity.

And you say sit and your dog puts their butt on the ground and it takes you five seconds to say yes. Maybe because you're busy saying good boy, or that's right, or, or maybe you're just slow. That's not very effective, right? If you say, if you click or say yes the instant your dog's butt hits the ground, that's maximally effective and it will be very clear for your dog. The picture will be way less fuzzy, right? If it takes you two seconds or three seconds to mark that behavior with a click or yes or whatever you're using, then it's probably middle of the road, right?

But it's still gonna be a little blurry, a little hazy for your dog. It's gonna take more reps for them to figure out what gets the marker, which predicts the reward, right? So there's a lot of connections that have to be made.

And if the timing of your marker isn't really precise, then it takes more reps. So a lot of people think if it takes a hundred reps, 200 reps, right, for their dog to learn something, that that's because their dog is thick. But a lot of times it's because our markers are—maybe we're not even using them, right? So our markers are not clear or incon, they're not, um, they're not clear, they're not consistent, they're not predictable. You don't have that language with the dog. Maybe you're not even using markers or maybe you're using them, but your timing is poor, right?

24:00 — Inconsistent timing adds ambiguity to the behavior-marker-consequence sequence and can require more repetitions.

So then your dog has extra stuff they have to figure out. It's like, well, sometimes when my butt hits the ground, it gets the marker. Sometimes my butt has to be on the ground for a few seconds to get the marker. Sometimes, sometimes they're reaching for the food before they mark.

So if any of those things are happening, it's gonna take more reps for your dog to figure out the sequence and what actually leads to reward. So to be clear, the full picture here, the full sequence that needs to be in place and the associations that need to be made are the dog's behavior needs to be tied to the marker. And then the marker needs to be tied to a consequence. So all of those connections need to be made and be consistent, right? And same thing with punishment. If you say no five seconds after the behavior occurred, your dog now has that extra piece they have to figure out, and it's going to, it's not that they can't do it, but it's gonna take more reps, it's gonna take longer, right?

So then you're gonna have to punish them more times. So I suggest if you don't like punishing your dog, you don't like punishing their behaviors, that you get good at using your no marker properly, right? If you reach for your e-collar remote before you say no, I'll use that same example again. That's you opening the door before the doorbell has rung.

And then people go, oh, my dog knows when I reach for the remote. It's like, okay, that's because you're doing it wrong. It should be the word no that predicts the remote. But instead you've set things up so that when you reach for the remote, that predicts no followed by punishment. See, now when my dog is present or any of the dogs we train, I can reach for the remote and they don't care. I get no reaction. Do you know why? Because they have no idea what I'm doing with it. I might just be moving it.

I might just be looking at it. I might be turning it on. We might be going to do some regular old conditioning exercises, right? They don't assume that I'm going to correct them with it. They don't just assume that punishment is coming. Why is that? And why is it when people go home with their dogs that changes? Well, let me tell you <laugh>, because being the humans that we are, we tend to panic and we tend to not put the effort into being precise and paying attention to our sequence, right? So it's really easy for me to say, you always say no first and then you correct your dog.

But unfortunately, that's not always what happens.

People will actually reach for their remote first. So that becomes the marker, right? Because it's gonna be the first thing in your sequence that actually predicts everything else. So if I reach for my remote, then I say no and I correct. That's a completely different association being made in the dog's head than if I say no first, then I reach for the remote and I correct. Do you understand? So now there's two different associations, right? I might reach for the remote, but if I haven't said no, nothing bad happens. And by the way, I've got three dogs laying in here with me right now and none of them are doing anything when I reach for these remotes.

Um, well, I suppose they're not even when I do say no because they've learned context, so they know it's not directed at them. But that's another story for another day.

But so start, hopefully this is thought-provoking for you and gets you really thinking about some of the associations you're inadvertently making with your dog because it's going to be the first thing that occurs in the sequence that becomes the predictor, right? And so if you wanna be really effective with your dog, you wanna have a really clear language with them. You wanna understand how they learn, it'll make you much more effective and efficient for the rest of their life when you wanna teach them something, and hopefully you do wanna teach them things, um, especially as they get older and go through different phases of life, you are gonna need to teach 'em different stuff.

29:00 — Kati describes the same sequence for reward and punishment: marker first, reach for the…

And so you should know how to mark for both reward and punishment. And here's the thing, even though they both predict different outcomes, one's very positive and motivating, one is very negative, also very motivating, right? But motivated to avoid a behavior rather than do a behavior. Um, they're both used the same exact way. So the marker comes first, then you can reach for whatever your tool is, whether it's food or an e-collar remote or whatever. And then you actually deliver the consequence, whether it's positive or negative. And that is how you effectively use a marker.

And the sooner you can mark in relation to the dog's behavior, the more quickly they're gonna pick it up, the more efficient you're gonna be. If it takes you longer, it's not gonna be so efficient, which is the other small problem with a clicker. As much as I love it, I think it is, um, the most precise and uniform reward marker.

And so I prefer to use that. But there will be times during the day where you might want to mark and reward something randomly and you don't have a clicker on you, right? During your training lessons, when you're carving out time to work with the dog, sure, you can have a clicker, right? But you're not necessarily gonna carry a clicker around with you all day, God, you know, let alone have it in your hand so you can click instantaneously, right? So there might be randomly things, and we call that free shaping. If your dog just does something on its own accord throughout the day and you go, ooh, I wanna reward that, right?

So we can build that behavior up. You might not have a clicker on you. So even if you use a clicker, it's not a bad idea to also have a verbal marker that you can use in the absence of a clicker. So you can teach your dog both. Um, and we often do that and that's totally fine, but so that sequence is really important.

So I think if there was one thing I was to urge people to take a look at and really rehearse, it's like get comfortable, get really, really good at whipping out your marker. Stop. 'Cause we are so trained by everything on the internet and YouTube, you know, everything is oriented toward providing the consequences immediately, providing the consequences immediately, providing the consequences immediately. And that is incorrect. Provide your marker immediately. And guess what? Make that a habit. Just focus on that one thing. And once you're good at that, guess what? You can deliver the consequence later.

In fact, I mentioned already, we actually encourage you to deliver it later, right? Just a few seconds. But that gives your dog a chance to internalize the marker, for it to actually hit, for them to hear the word "no," for them to hear the click, right? If you do them too close together, then it's almost like there's no processing time. It doesn't sink in as well. It doesn't hit the same. We want a very clear order of things happening, just like the doorbell. Okay? So get really good at that and then get good at, get comfortable with actually waiting to deliver consequences.

33:00 — Kati recommends practicing a gap between the marker and consequence, returning to the doorbell…

So you can even stretch out the time in between marker and consequence. Just like the doorbell. I know I keep coming back to that one. It's a good analogy that I'm very proud of. <laugh>. So the doorbell rings, even if it takes you a couple minutes, you know, to wash your hands and dry your hands and walk over to the door, your dog knows there's someone there, right? They don't forget just because it took you 30 seconds. So get comfortable with providing a marker and then not providing consequences right away. Challenge yourself to stretch that time out, right?

And in the very beginning, sure, your dog might not know, but they will learn quickly, right? It just sticking to that pattern. So get comfortable with clicking and maybe your food pouch is way on the other side of the room.

I understand it would be laborious to do like a hundred repetitions that way, but do some, okay? You teach your dog to sit, right? You say "sit," dog puts their butt on the ground, you click, you gotta walk all the way across the living room and go get the food. Get, so you get comfortable with, there's a gap between my marker and the, and the consequence. Same thing with punishment. So my own dogs, I can say "no," and this happens fairly frequently. If one of them decides to be a monkey, I can say "no," I can march all the way through the living room, all the way through the dining room, out into the kitchen, get the remote, deliver the consequence.

And believe me, you, when I say "no," they know it's coming. Niblet, my pug, will usually go <laugh>, go hide under the dining room table as if he's safe under there. He is not. I know it sounds so pitiful and, um, pathetic. Um, but it's actually a good thing, right? Because it tells me my communication with my dog is very clear. And although he looks scared and pitiful in that moment, what it tells me is I am very predictable. I'm not unpredictable, I'm not unstable. He knows exactly when the correction is coming and it's after I say "no."

He knows once I say "no," right? He's not worried about me walking around all day punishing him. Not like that at all. He is a very happy, playful, lovable dog. We have a great relationship. He loves to snuggle. But he also knows when I say "no," it's not gonna be pretty <laugh>, right?

There's gonna be a real correction, a real meaningful correction. Um, and so that is obvious by his behavior 'cause he will try to get away from it. You know, that's normal. That means I've really attached something to my word "no." And that's very predictable and very clear to the dog. And that's important, right? A lot of people worry about their dog becoming anxious or fearful or nervous. It's like no, because they should know exactly what the sequence is. They should know exactly what to expect, right? There's no anxiety, there's no question marks around any of this.

They know it and they know it's tied to their behavior because I say "no" at the right time. So for instance, for a little while, Niblet, my pug who I was just talking about, he wanted to eat out of the cat box, right? Because that's delicious. Dogs are so disgusting and pugs are even more disgusting than your average dog <laugh>. But so he wanted some cat snacks.

Okay, well I'm sorry, but I'm gonna punish that behavior because it's sick, it's gross, it's not healthy and it's just blah. So if he did that, if I saw him starting to investigate the cat box or getting into the cat box, I would say "no." Then I would take my time, go get the remote, turn it up, provide a meaningful correction. And sometimes it was the bonker, sometimes it wasn't the e-collar. That's besides the point. But the sequence was correct and accurate and precise. And guess what? He does not get into the cat box anymore, okay?

But what I wouldn't do is I wouldn't look around for my remote before I said the word "no," I wouldn't grab the remote before I said the word "no." I wouldn't correct him as I said the word "no" because that's not the sequence. And he is not gonna make the connections and the associations as quickly and clearly as I want him to. And it is my responsibility as the one providing all these consequences to deliver them in a way he understands.

So if you're concerned about your dog being confused or anxious or fearful of you, if you're concerned about your relationship, if you're concerned about having to do it frequently, right? Then this stuff is important. Because if you don't understand what your sequence is really supposed to be and you don't execute it well, then it takes longer for your dog to figure it out. And you have to do it more, right? Whether we're talking about positive or negative, you have to do more reps for your dog to go, oh, I get the connection, the picture has gotten clear enough. Paint a clear picture from the beginning.

39:00 — Kati introduces “nope” or “wrong” after puppies have developed a basic grasp of an…

Okay? Now we're, if that's an unwanted behavior, if we're talking about obedience reps, that's where we tend to use the more neutral markers. And so just an example, if I am teaching a puppy to do a command, there will be lots of clicks followed by food. After we've done enough reps that I feel the dog has a grasp on the command, they might not be an expert at it, but they've got a grasp on what it means. I'll start saying nope or wrong, can use either one, right? You can use any word you want for any of this stuff, honestly.

Um, but you, you know, be consistent with what word you're using with the dog.

And all I do after I give that word is nothing. I'll usually go reset them, right, a little bit of leash guidance, take 'em over, put 'em back, um, or get them into the position that I wanted them to get into, right? So if I say sit and they do it, I click and reward. I say sit. They do it, I click and reward. They say sit. I do it, they do it, I click and reward, then I say sit. They don't do it. I say wrong and we just move on. We wait a little bit and then we, I ask again.

So they see, oh, I do it, I get food, I do it, I get food, I do it, I get food, I don't do it, I don't get food.

Makes sense. So that's another way to get a little more traction and be a little more effective once your dog starts to understand the command. Um, and that's what we do with with puppies. Um, now we have, we don't always do that necessarily with adult dogs. We do something very similar, but we're usually adding the e-collar. Um, we also have the good marker, right? Which is somewhat neutral because there's no real consequence attached to that either, but it's sort of, it's praise, right? It's just neutral praise. And more or less what it comes to mean with repetition is you are doing the right thing.

Keep doing the right thing to avoid correction, right? So we'll say good. Um, but it doesn't predict an actual physical consequence of some kind. There's no food, there's no punishment, it's just good, right? Good job, right? It's very neutral praise, letting them know they're doing the right thing. Uh, and so I like to use that a lot. And then at the end of the repetition, we will likely mark that with a reward marker or punishment marker if they mess up. But while they are actively doing what we ask, it's good, right? And a lot of people say good to their dog.

So a lot of people use that marker, but I think it looks different for everybody. A lot of people say good and then they feed. I don't love that because there are going to be times, especially down the road, once your dog's more advanced, that you say good and you don't feed, right?

So I don't use good as a reward marker, generally speaking, right? But creating that really clear language with your dog, guys, is so important. 'Cause they don't understand English, right? They're just making associations. And so if you're using all different words and all different markers or your timing is all over the map for when you give those markers, then they don't work, they don't make the connections, the picture stays really blurry. So the idea is you teach your dog these markers and like I said, we usually like to get a little head start and start teaching them that before our training lessons with the obedience commands.

43:00 — Repeated click-and-feed pairings, with varied delays before feeding, teach dogs what the marker predicts.

Teach your dog what these markers predict by just sitting there and doing marker, consequence, marker, consequence, right? So you can sit there and click and feed your dog 50 times and they start to go, mm, you know? And if you do that, you want to vary the amount of time between the click and the food. So do it right away and then start waiting a few seconds before you feed. So they really make that connection.

That's really important to develop that language with your dog. And then the second piece to that is your consequence needs to be meaningful. So if your dog isn't motivated by food, then the food isn't really much of a consequence, is it? I get a lot of dogs here, I can give them food and sometimes they'll take it and spit it out. <laugh> And punishment is the same. If I say no, but then I just grab my remote and I tap and it's on a five, well, it's not much of a consequence, is it? So the markers are critical, but what you attach to them is also critical.

If you attach consequences to your marker that don't motivate your dog, doesn't do much good, doesn't change the behavior much.

And we see that more on the punishment side, um, that people just correct their dogs too low, right? So the behavior doesn't change, even if they manage to interrupt it, it doesn't go away, like they do it again in five minutes, right? Or they do it again in an hour. Um, so really, really important to if to be a maximally effective trainer, you want to have clear markers established with your dog, right? They know what those markers predict. You give the marker at the proper time and then you follow after that marker with a meaningful consequence, whether it's positive or negative, it's very motivating to your dog.

And that is how you get the most traction with your dog training.

And as a side note, guys, can you provide consequences without markers? Yes, I've done it. I still do it in some contexts. But here's the thing, doing that in general makes you a lot less effective because then the timing of your consequence becomes absolutely crucial, which is probably the thing you've always heard, right? And in the real world, you're just not going to be able to supply consequences fast enough, right? They're not gonna be immediate, it's just not reality. You're not always gonna to be standing right next to your dog with your tools, whether that's food or e-collar remote or bonker or whatever it is.

You're not always gonna be able to shove food down your dog's throat immediately. You're not always going to be able to correct your dog immediately. And so having those markers makes that a total non-issue, right? A, a delay in your consequences will not affect your results if you have markers.

Markers are very easy. You carry them everywhere with you, right? My dog will be on the other side of the park and I can yell, "No," and now I've got time to deliver my consequence. I can walk 30 feet over to the picnic table and get my e-collar if that's what we're talking about. And it doesn't impact my results, right? So having markers helps you immensely in the real world. It's you that needs the training to get used to actually using them, right? So definitely the way to go if you wanna have, uh, real clear communication with your dog and real good results, uh, faster, right?

And most people don't know this stuff and you'd be surprised how many trainers don't know this stuff or don't use 'em properly. Um, and it really, really makes a difference. It will improve the communication and the understanding between you and your dog.

Uh, and it will improve your results. So if you want a visual to help you with this process, jump down into the show notes and there'll be a link there that I've provided for you to a video showing you, um, the precise process, the timing of our markers, uh, what markers we're using, and you can see in real time with your own eyes how that is tied into the dog's behavior. Hope you enjoy and look forward to next time, guys. Hey guys, thanks for joining us today. I really hope you enjoyed the show. If there's a specific topic you'd like to hear discussed, you can send that to me directly via email or fan mail.

48:00 — Kati closes by inviting listeners to send topic suggestions through email or fan mail…

Just jump down into the show notes. That information will be there for you. I really look forward to hearing from you. Thanks for supporting the show and I look forward to next time.