Training Tuesday! Foundation Marker Cues
A marker is (typically) an auditory signal that marks the exact behavior a dog will be rewarded for. The marker may commonly be a clicker or a verbal cue. Consistent use of marker cues helps speed up the learning process for our dogs.
We can expand our use of marker cues to communicate not just which behavior will be rewarded, but also the type of reward (food? toy?), and the location the reward will be delivered (from my hand, the ground, a dish, etc). Having a variety of location-specific and reinforcement-specific markers has several benefits, including reducing frustration, over-arousal, increased clarity, and stimulus control on reinforcers. Yes, it is more work for the human to remember all the cues, but it gets easier with practice and it's worth it for the results! :)
Here is cute baby Blizzard's first session introducing two verbal marker cues: "yes" = food from my hand, "get it" = food from the ground.
I don't ask her to do any specific behaviors yet. She is just learning what the verbal markers mean. Note that with the "get it" marker I am deliberate with the hand motion tossing the treat. This helps Blizzard more easily track where the food is going. In this session she also has the bonus learning that the open food dish is not available. That will be another cue in a later session.
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