Communication Simplified: Marker Words
One of our jobs as dog trainers is to help enhance communication. We help dog owners understand their dogs and what the dog is communicating to them. And we help the owners better communicate with the dog. But why is communication so difficult between humans and dogs? The answer is so simple and yet so overlooked.
Dogs are not humans and therefore they do not naturally communicate like humans! Human communication is primarily verbal while canine communication is primarily physical and tactile. Dogs communicate through body language, touch, and pressure whereas humans mainly speak to communicate.
In an effort to merge our world with the world of dogs, humans have learned how to condition dogs to perform behaviors with a verbal cue. For example, sit and the dog will sit.
But imagine living in a world where you were commanded what to do, but you were never clearly shown what behaviors were allowed and what behaviors were not allowed…. You’d be stressed out!! Well, that’s most dogs!
Obedience is cool and all, but the conversation needs to be much simpler before we start commanding dogs to do things. Here’s where Marker Words come into play.
Marker words are words we use to mark certain behaviors to help the dog pair an association to that behavior. Think of it like this: every time you use a marker word you’re taking a picture of a moment in time and filing it under “desirable behavior” or “undesirable behavior” in your dogs brain, depending on which marker word you’re using. Your dog will begin to create a “photo album” of all the memories and moments you’ve captured with your marker words and they’ll use those past experiences to shape new behaviors and patterns! The goal here is to have more “photos” in the “good photo album” than the “bad photo album”!
In the most simple form of marker training you will use a positive marker, like “good”, to mark the desired behaviors and a negative marker, like “no”, to mark undesirable behavior. Before we can utilize these marker words appropriately, you must condition the dog to the markers.
With properly conditioned marker words, you have just unlocked the most basic and arguably the most effective form of communication with your dog— Yes and No!!
These marker words can be used to provide clarity to your dog on your expectations and will enhance your communication tenfold! Pairing marker training with other training techniques can help provide clarity and reduce stress when learning new things by helping the dog see that we’re there to help them!
If you’d like help getting started with marker training and would like to learn how to condition your markers, book a virtual consult with us!