Marker training basics III

what next?

Strengthening the marker's power.

Once you've established an association for your dog (or other animal) between the sound of your chosen marker and some valued reward, you can begin to use the marker to identify and encourage any and all behavior you like. If you have a totally untrained young pup, you might mark and reward a moment's quiet in an outburst of barking, then the next moment, and the next, until you find that the moments accumulate into longer spells of sweet silence.* Moments of eye contact are another great place to start with puppies and many full-grown dogs: everything you do in training will be built on a foundation of focused attention, so make it as wide and deep as you can. Don't worry at first about attaching cues to these behaviors. Saying "quiet" before your dog has arrived at a solid physical understanding of what quiet is will only create needless frustration for you both. And saying "QUIET!" will probably convince him that whatever he's barking at is even more threatening or exciting than he thought, since you're suddenly barking too.

If your dog already performs one or more behaviors pretty reliably when you ask for them, you could begin simply by marking correct responses to your cue. What's correct? For now, whatever it has been in the past. If your dog habitually responds to "sit" by backing up a couple of steps and settling lazily onto one haunch while sticking his other back leg out to the side, you know that's his definition of the word. Yours might be different, but for the moment you can set aside the task of bringing the two definitions together. Mark and reward every sit that follows your "sit," no matter how slow, no matter how sloppy. (You may find the sits get quicker and straighter in spite of your absence of effort.)

A few things to remember:

1. Give the cue only once. If your dog fails to respond, wait at least twenty seconds (and until you have his full attention) before giving it again, or "Sit. Sit. Sit!" may become your cue. Treat all words like empty vessels, and fill them deliberately with meaning.**
2. The mark is always followed by a reward. You don't have to mark every repetition of the behavior (I'll talk later about effective "schedules" for marking), but when you do mark, you're making a promise on which you need to deliver.
3. Work on one new behavior at a time. There's a significant exception to this rule that I'll talk about later, but this helps avoid confusion for the animal and accelerates learning.
4. Work in short sessions. Very short! Ten to fifteen repetitions between breaks. At the first sign of fatigue or fading interest, stop.
5. End on a high note. If possible, end with the new behavior you've been training, but if necessary end with a behavior the dog already knows well. Success breeds success.

What's most important in the early going (and ever after) is that you and your animal enjoy yourselves. I won't go into an elaborate defense of positive training methods here, but they follow from the (scientifically sound) premise that the training of voluntary behaviors proceeds most effectively and predictably from a state of eager but contained anticipation (especially in the case of a predatory animal). But even when training's fun, it's taxing. Again, the moment you notice your dog's interest flagging, or your own impatience rising, stop -- always, if you can help it, with a fresh success, however small. That way you'll continually create positive associations (for you and your animal) with training itself.

*On the other hand, I do not recommend that you begin by marking and rewarding a bark, especially if you're using a more powerful marker like a clicker. One thing to keep in mind is that the first few behaviors you effectively marker train will become the animal's default behaviors in future training. Quietly attentive behaviors (like eye contact or sit) are your best choices at the start.

**The trick with words (and other cues and markers) as vessels of meaning is that they might already be topped up. Old meanings can be difficult to dislodge, especially if they're loaded with pain or fear. Thus it's a very good idea (though sometimes difficult in practice) to avoid saying your pet's name in anger. If you want a truly empty word, try something rare, silly, or foreign. I lived in Bologna more than twenty years ago, and pretty much the only time I get to knock the rust off my Italian these days is when I'm cueing Pazzo with "fusilli!" (left spin) or "bombolone!" (right spin).

Marker training basics II

Sounds like...

...steak!!

Making the marker meaningful.

The principles and methods I'm describing here work across species; they've been used effectively in the training of countless animals, from rabbits to rhinoceroses, from grizzlies to gerenuks. (I highly recommend that all skeptics check out this brief article by Karen Pryor and the embedded video of a marker-trained rhino.) Before her death last year, our lovely calico Hops had learned through marker training to target my hand with her nose and to give me a head butt on the cue "Zidane" (which will only make sense if you follow European football). Most of my experience, however, has been with dogs, and for ease of reference I'll focus my discussion on them.

As I noted in the previous post, it's important that the stimulus you choose as a marker should initially possess little or no meaning for the animal you want to train. This will give you full freedom to endow it with the meaning you want: "Well done! Good things coming!" Here's yet another reason that words can be problematic as markers -- unless you're training a young puppy and you can commit in a disciplined way to reserving your marker word(s) exclusively for training, there's a high likelihood that their meanings will become muddied with unintended associations.

I'm strongly sympathetic to the visceral distaste that many people feel for clickers and other mechanical soundmaking doo-hickeys. They're cold and fussy and seem to require a third hand that we haven't got. Still more annoying, they interpose a barrier of artifice between trainer and trainee. However, for consistency, precision, and repeatability, they're really hard to beat. And paradoxical as it may seem, the little gap they introduce in our "natural" communication with other animals actually improves our mutual understanding immeasurably. No, I take that back -- the improvement can be measured, has been measured, and it's big.

So I recommend a clicker despite the possibility that it may not be totally neutral for you or your dog. Contrary to popular belief, you won't need to use it forever: once you've trained a specific behavior and put it reliably on cue, word markers will usually suffice to maintain the training. But you'll get to that maintenance stage much more quickly with a clicker, and once you're there I can pretty much guarantee that you'll notice a significant uptick in your dog's enthusiasm and attention anytime you pick that silly gadget back up. Likewise your cat's -- Hops would immediately start purring whenever I started a new training session.

Of course, that wasn't her first response to the clicker. She was mostly indifferent to it, maybe a little affronted. The sound it makes is short, sharp, and attention grabbing, qualities that make it effective for training but also make it rude in other contexts. So you'll want to introduce it carefully, from a distance, or muffled in a pocket. (It's best to avoid pointing the clicker like a t.v. remote at your dog's face.) Gauge your dog's response. Curiosity and/or indifference are a fine place to start, but if you see him/her shrink back, you'll need to take things more slowly.

If you decide to use another marker, just do what you can to keep it precise and consistent. A single syllable like "yes" generally works better to this end than a longer word.

Your first and most important task is to persuade your dog that, from this moment on, the following equation holds absolutely true:

"click" (or "yes") = wonderfulness

In order to establish that equation, you need to know what your dog already considers wonderful. Ideally you can identify among the many things your dog loves some thing(s) that are easily doled out in small bits. Food is the obvious candidate for a predatory species, and the one I rely on most heavily (probably too heavily, made complacent by my dogs' eager appetites). For early training, when the strength of a good impression takes precedence over perfect nutrition, I like (because my dogs like) hot dogs and smoked mozzarella, which are relatively inexpensive, have great intensity of flavor, and are easily divvied into tiny (1/4" by 1/4") cubes. Red Barn and Natural Balance also make meaty but dry food rolls that are as mouthwatering (to most dogs) as they are nourishing; they're my treat of choice when I work with dogs at the Oregon Humane Society. But it's good and sometimes necessary to think beyond food rewards; depending on the animal and the situation, they may be impractical and/or unrewarding. I've been working with Pazzo recently on his ability to keep the leash loose when we walk through our local squirrel-infested park (where he may be totally indifferent to food that isn't on the move). When he pulls the leash taut, I simply stop. The moment he gives me slack, I click and move with him in the direction of the squirrel. To Pazzo's delight, the squirrels will often double-down on my reward by staying put, and we've thus become a great slow-motion stalking team. Likewise, agility trainers will often reward their dogs with quick games of tug, and trainers of impassioned herders carefully control their access to sheep.

But for clarity's sake I'll assume that you've got a clicker, a hungry dog, and a stash of small, tasty food treats. Here's what you need to do:

1. Click.
2. Treat.
3. Repeat.

That's it. There are only a couple of competing provisos: try not to move your "treat hand" until after you've clicked, but deliver the treat as quickly as possible (within a second of the click). Finding a rhythm that keeps those two events close but distinct will make the click most meaningful to your dog and help unlock his/her exclusive focus on the treats.

Marker training basics I

Worth a thousand words?

On the definition and choice of a marker.

Even (or especially) among experienced animal trainers and savvy pet owners, I often encounter a strong prejudice against "clicker training." The phrase itself is a turnoff to many, which is one reason I've come to prefer the more or less interchangeable terms "marker training" or "bridge training." These latter phrases describe the approach more accurately and inclusively -- people naturally get confused when you tell them that "clicker training" doesn't necessarily involve a clicker. Another reason I favor the second two terms is that they have so far escaped strong commercial association and appropriation.**

"Marker training" is the most literal and straightforward of the three, so it's the one I'll use from now on. My aim here and in future "basics" posts is to lay out the foundational principles, reasoning, and tools of this approach so that you'll be free to adapt them to your own needs and ends. I'll also try to anticipate some of the challenges you might encounter when starting out, and to offer possible solutions. But one of the foremost advantages of marker training is its flexibility: once you have a good command of the core ideas, you and the animal you're training have infinite creative license in putting them to use!

Marker training falls under the larger umbrella of positive training methods; indeed, it's something we all practice whenever we say "good dog!" But a solid understanding of how and why it works can help us practice it much more deliberately and effectively.

As with the "good dog!" example, a marker is simply a stimulus chosen by the trainer to signal two things and establish a vital connection between them:

1. I like that behavior.
2. You will be rewarded.

An effective marker satisfies a few important criteria:

1. It is specific.
2. It is easily reproduced by the trainer.
3. It is easily perceived by the trainee.
4. It is initially neutral, meaning that it has little or no intrinsic meaning to the trainee.

I don't know of any successful use of taste markers, given that few tastes are truly neutral to any animal; smells can be tricky for the same reason but are sometimes used as markers, most obviously and often in tracking work. Sight markers are tops in neutrality, but not always easily reproduced or perceived. Like touch markers, they may be most useful with animals who have lost use of one or more of their senses, or in situations where sound markers are impractical or forbidden. For most trainers and trainees, in most situations, sound markers tend to be most adaptable and workable. That said, they require more care in their choice and use than you might expect.

Why is that? Part of the problem ironically arises from our great facility in producing varied and complex sounds, our gift of the gab. The general human reliance on words to convey meaning makes many of us sloppy with tone (unless we speak a tonal language), volume, enunciation, inflection, and emphasis. In other words, we take the least care with precisely those variables that other animals are most likely to find intelligible. We toss flurries of meaningless syllables their way like so many snowballs -- and instead of congratulating them for catching a few on the fly, we berate them for being stubborn and slow. Our carelessness in expression is mirrored by our bluntness in perception. Few of us can reliably hear the difference between one "good dog!" and another (less enthusiastic, slower in tempo, higher in pitch, etc.) but a dog can. "Sit, Stormy. Sit! Get down, Stormy! No, Stormy! Sit!" may be roughly translated as: "My poor owner is working herself unnecessarily into a lather." The more loquacious we are, the more faith we place in language, the less likely it is that our pets will understand us.

So choosing and using sound markers effectively requires that we get humble; we need to begin from a recognition of our limitations. Most of us just don't possess the emotional and vocal control we need to produce sounds that are highly specific, consistent, and intrinsically neutral. Which is not to say that words cannot work as markers, only that their ease of use masks (and even contributes to) their inefficacy relative to other, more precise sound markers. Like clickers, yes, but also like whistles, chimes, and bells. Training by whoopee cushion, anyone?

**I am an ardent fan of Karen Pryor (trainer and educator extraordinaire, founder and CEO of Karen Pryor Clickertraining), forever grateful to her for her insight, her dedication to reality over "common knowledge" (e.g. dominance theory), and her tireless advocacy of positive training methods. The six months I spent under the instruction of Helix Fairweather with the Karen Pryor Academy for Animal Training and Behavior were tremendously illuminating and rewarding. I am proud to be certified by KPA as a trainer, and I plan to attend ClickerExpo here in Portland at the end of the month. I do, however, think there's a downside to Karen's mostly laudable efforts to establish common professional standards and gather like-minded trainers into one big tent, particularly when there are fees collected at many of the tent's entrances. I had a mostly friendly tussle with KPCT's president, Aaron Clayton, when I graduated from KPA and learned that my promised year of free access to the alumni message boards was contingent upon my entering a marketing agreement that would require me to display the KPA logo on my website and anywhere else I advertised my services as a trainer. In this instance and a few others, I found that independence of thought and self-presentation ran somewhat at odds with the commercial imperatives of KPCT (as they would with those of most for-profit ventures).