Marker Word Training

What is a marker word?

A marker word is a signal to your dog that they have done something right and that they are going to be rewarded. It’s the verbal equivalent of a clicker. You can use either or both in your training. We can use our marker word to pinpoint to your dog the precise behaviour they are being rewarded for. This is the very first thing I work on with all my training clients.

Why do we use one?

Using a marker word or clicker makes all your training a lot more effective and efficient. This is because it makes it much clearer to your dog which exact behaviour was the one you were looking for. Reinforcement drives behaviour, so if your dog understands which behaviour they are being reinforced for, they are much more likely to repeat it. For example, when training your dog to not jump up on people, you would mark and reward them for doing any other appropriate behaviour. This could be sitting, lying down or simply standing with all four paws on the ground. It also buys you a bit of time to actually get your treat ready and deliver it to your dog.

How to train a marker word

To introduce a marker word to your dog, you’ll want to have a handful of treats ready. You can use anything your dog finds rewarding as a reward. However, food is typically a very high value reward and often the most convenient in training. Choose a word like nice, good or yes that you are going to use as your marker word. We want this word to be a predictor of a reward appearing. Your dog doesn’t have to be doing anything in particular for you to teach them a marker word. They just need to be doing something you’re happy to reward!

Say your marker word and 1 second later, deliver a treat to your dog. Repeat this 10-15 times. You’ll likely start to see little signs in your dogs body language that they are starting to build an association between your chosen marker and a reward appearing. Once you’ve conditioned your marker like this, you can use it in everything else you train.

For example, have a watch of this video of me training my dog to ignore my son’s toys. You’ll hear that when Duke is able to ignore the toys, I say ‘nice’ and throw Duke a treat. I also use a clicker and you can have a look at this video of me doing some muzzle training with Duke for an example of that. You can hear a click everytime he pushes his nose into the muzzle. In both videos you can see that Duke recognises that a reward is becoming when he hears that word or click.

What next?

• Looking for more help with your reactive dog? Contact us to arrange in person or online training.
• Read more blog posts here.
• Perfect Recall: Teaching your dog to come back when called every time. Our guide is free to download when you join our email list- sign up here.