Effectively teach your dog with a clicker. Dog training made easy!
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I also like to teach a marker that signals negative reinforcement. This is very useful when teaching the stay command or if you wanted to teach your dog to not jump on the furniture. This helps your dog to learn what they can and can’t do without receiving a form of positive punishment. The type of negative reinforcement that it predicts is leash pressure. In this video, I'll use the word “Wrong”.
This part of the training only requires that we teach our dog the terminal marker. The exercise goes as follows:
• Get your dog’s attention.
• Once your dog is looking at you, you use your clicker.
• Deliver the reward. Note: the marker sound must come before you move to deliver the reward. If you click while you’re giving the dog the reward, your dog will never become conditioned to the sound.
• Wait until your dog eats the first reward and looks back at you. Again, use your clicker, followed by moving away from your dog, encouraging your dog to come and get the second reward.
When doing this exercise, I prefer to go back and forth between handing the pup the reward and making the dog come and get the reward. I also recommend switching your supply hand and your distribution hand. You will continue to do sessions of this exercise until your dog is conditioned to the clicker. When done correctly most dogs will become conditioned within a day or two.
Ivan Pavlov knew his dogs were conditioned to a marker because they’d salivate. The way I test a dog to see if it’s conditioned is I will say or click the marker (the sound that predicts the reward), and instead of giving the reward, I watch them for any changes of behavior. These are the four most common:
• Opening their mouths • Salivating • Licking their lips • Moving their paws
On the other hand, if all they give you is a blank stare—you’ll know they’re not conditioned.
Now that your dog is conditioned to each marker, you may be wondering how long you have to deliver the primary reinforcer before you lose the connection. Well, you have as much time as the dog is paying attention. This could be any length of time until the dog is distracted (if a rabbit runs by and catches your dog’s attention, you’ve lost it). This means you don’t have to rush the delivery of the reward.
Next, when using a marker make sure your dog is doing a behavior that you like. Don’t make the common mistake of using the marker to get your dog’s attention. Meaning, your dog is not paying attention to you, so you use the marker to get your dog to look at you. Even though your dog looks at you after you say the marker, the dog was actually being rewarded for looking away from you.
Lastly, if you use your marker, you must pay your dog with the primary. A marker only has value because it ALWAYS predicts the primary reinforcer.
