Eating ‘Humble Pie’ and Messing up my Training

Friends, it is time to eat some humble pie and admit that this week, I messed up. I messed up on maybe the first thing we teach our dogs, our marker. Yes, that’s right, I effed up my marker word SO BAD it now means something else to one of the dogs. So, how did I get here and what am I doing about it?

How I got here…

When any of the dogs I am working with or walking alone get ‘good’ at knowing my criteria and acting accordingly, I often forgo taking food rewards out with me on walks. I’ll use other reinforcers like releasing them from stationary positions, toys, praise and their environment. I’ll take food rewards with me every so often, or if we are working on ironing our behaviours, but mostly it’s just us and the environment.

This is my first lesson learned; if I want consistent results with food rewards and what they mean, I have to work with them consistently.

Here’s what I mean by that…

Location-Specific Reward Markers

A location-specific reward marker (LSRM) is something that tells your dog they have done the right thing and exactly where to find their reinforcement. I have markers like ‘find it’ which means retrieve the toy and put it in my hands; ‘do you wanna go off?’ which means sit and I will take the lead off and then I will release you; and ‘gooooo’ which means run ahead of me and I’ll throw the toy. These all tell the dogs exactly where reinforcement is coming from. It is great for when you want to teach them distance handling cues like a recall too. Some of my recall cues mean ‘change direction’, whereas others mean come right into me. Imagine if a clicker could tell a dog exactly where to go to receive the reinforcement they were after, that is what an LSRM is.

My LSRM for ‘you can get a food treat I have thrown on the floor’ is ‘search!’. This breaks the dog from position and can help me reset them. For example, if I am teaching a ‘down’ (lay down) cue, I will often give a ‘search’ marker in between goes to get them to stand up out of position.

I also love having a reward marker for ‘stay where you are, I am coming to you with a treat’. What I have usually used for this is the word ‘yesss’. Now, I will be honest, I have been warned off of using this word as my marker by trainers much more experienced than I. ‘Yesss’ is something we say a lot in general, and your LSRM, especially one you will use often, should be something you have to think about, not a word that can just roll off the tongue in conversation as this can confuse your dog. If this marker means ‘you are getting a treat’, we need to back it up every time we say it, otherwise it loses potency for our dogs.

Iy began when I caught myself using this marker without backing it up with a reward. And guess what guys, a location-specific reward marker isn’t rewarding unless you back it up with a reward (pounds head against the wall). I would then end up fumbling to get a treat out, which is BAD mechanics, I know, I know! But this lack of forethought, along with using fewer and fewer repetitions as I used more environmental rewards, has led to the issue of them thinking that ‘yess’ = sit. Why? Because I almost always reward a sit, it is my default for all dogs and is something I want them to want to do. So much so that when I gave the marker ‘yesss’ in the middle of a retrieve, the dog ran back to me and sat. Double burn because if I had taught it properly they should have sat exactly where they were when I said the marker and not run back to me. I know, big fuck up.

The truth is, I was being hard headed (who, me? Neverrrrrr!). People much more knowledgeable than myself had warned me that ‘yesss’ was too easy of a marker, that I would end up saying it randomly and without backing it up and I thought to myself ‘not me, I’m different’. I have used this marker with so many dogs and horses and never questioned my own skillset. It is only when I wanted to advance this skillset of mine, teach new and more complex behaviours and skills that I realised just how much I had truly mixed up my signals. The old saying is true; the more you know, the more you realise you don’t know.

What I’m doing about it

Well, I am stopping my use of the word ‘yess’, eating my humble pie and taking a step back to really assess my handler technique, methods and handler skills. The truth is, I should have noticed this before it even became a problem, but I was complacent and it shows in the dog’s skills. Dogs are always showing our faults, I have said before that when you begin to really look into your handling skills it is like holding an old tapestry up to the light. It is full of holes, some small, some massive gaps, and it is our job to go back in and mend them.

I am going to be choosing a new LSRM, which means ‘a treat is coming to you’ and studying up more on how I can ensure that this doesn’t happen again. This is not the first time I have poisoned a marker and I thought I had learned my lesson the first time when I accidentally taught a dog that praise (good girllll) meant they could be released.

Learning Through my Weaknesses

This is clearly a weak spot of mine and something I need to be diligent about. Any dog I work with is a mirror of me whilst I am working with them. They are continually showing me what they have learned, which is a different thing from what I have taught them. Just because I thought I had taught them what a cue or marker meant, does not mean that is how they interpreted my learning.

So, big piece of humble pie has been consumed and a reminder to myself that I am not starting again from zero, but starting again with experience.

Ella x