So you brought home a dog and you’re ready to train her. Where do you start?
Luckily, the first step is the easiest: Pick your marker word.
A marker word is the word you’ll use when your dog does something right — when she sits when you ask, when she comes when you call, you get the idea. Your word should be simple and clear, and ideally, a word you won’t use too often.
Ours, for example, was “reward.” In our puppy training class, other words included “treat,” “yes!” and “good.”
Whenever you say your marker word, it should be immediately followed with a small treat. This way, you’re forging a connection in your dog’s mind: If I do the right thing, I hear that word and I get a treat.
(Trust me, she’ll learn all too quickly that word means food and will do just about anything to hear that word again.)
Why does this work? It’s a principle of psychology called classical conditioning, made famous by the “Pavlov’s dog” experiment. That experiment in a nutshell: Russian scientist Ivan Pavlov noticed the dogs in his lab would begin to salivate when a particular technician would enter the room — the one who fed them. After observing this awhile, Pavlov formulated an experiment: If these dogs were conditioned to salivate at the sight of a particular person (the stimulus), could a similar reaction be achieved with a different stimulus?
His experiment was pretty simple: He’d ring a bell, give the dogs food, and repeat. Soon enough, the dogs associated the bell with food, so when the bell rang, they’d begin to salivate. And that’s how we came to understand classical conditioning.
For a great demonstration of the process, look no further than “The Office.”
Your marker word, then, is the stimulus your dog associates with food, and that they did the right thing!
So pick your word and start small. Especially with young, easily distracted puppies, get them used to the word by simply saying it and giving her a treat over and over. “Reward,” treat, “reward,” treat, etc. Repeat in small sessions over the next few days so it really sticks. When training your dog with a marker word for the first time, be sure you have treats right there you can immediately distribute — if you say the marker word and then walk to the kitchen to root around for a treat, the message won’t stick. (As your dog gets older, though, a little gap between word/treat is fine.)
As your training advances, keep using that marker word — that way, she knows she’s doing something right.
Another Method
Instead of marker words, many professional dog trainers use clickers. Just like a marker word, the clicker is used to classically condition your dog to associate a sound (in this case, a click), with a treat. Clickers are especially helpful for those who plan on teaching their dogs more advanced tricks. But if you’re not going that route, a marker word is all you need.