# When marker training, can the reward change?



## Kori Bigge (Nov 28, 2007)

Tonight I started teaching Kodee a new game (Find It!), and I didn't have any treats handy. Instead of taking my lazy butt into the kitchen & getting some , I tried just using verbal praise/petting as a reward for his marker ("Yes!"). Normally, "Yes!" means a food reward. Tonight is the first time I've used a different reward (praise/physical affection).

It seemed to work fine (he's catching on to this new game quickly), but before we proceed any further, I wanted to double-check and make sure that this won't end up confusing Kodee. Can a marker mean "Something (anything) good is gonna happen" - treats/praise/ball toss), or does it always have to mean the exact same thing? (I have always used treats and the marker to teach new commands, then once he's learned the command, from then on I usually use a ball to practice/reinforce his training on the new command - he will do anything to get me to toss his Ultra Ball.


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## Bob Scott (Mar 30, 2006)

Not only can it, but it should. Variable reward is another way to keep the dog's drive up. I'll use the slot machine analogy agin. The dog never knows what's next but the anticipation keeps it's drive way up.
At club we all toss our food treats in a bowl and just grab a handful. You can also keep the realy high level reward (Ultra Ball) for exceptional performances. 
Just keep everything random. It's way to easy to fall into a pattern and the dog will pick up on that way before you realize your doing it. Then training can become boreing to the dog.


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## Bob Scott (Mar 30, 2006)

I would also add that you want to get away from marking and rewarding each and every exercise. Just as in correction training, the dog has to learn that it won't get rewarded or corrected with every action it does. This is where the chaining comes to play.


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## Kori Bigge (Nov 28, 2007)

Thanks a lot, Bob! One more question - I'm not sure what "chaining" is. Is that where you have the dog perform a series of commands before rewarding it?


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## Bob Scott (Mar 30, 2006)

Yes! You break down each individual exercise into as many small pieces as you can. When the exercise is correct, then chain it together with another correct exercise before the reward. Never stop working on the individual exercises though. One weak exercise (link) weakens the whole set (chain)of exercises. 
Example; You teach the dog to sit, to heel, to turn left or right. Each one of those are worked on and rewarded separately. THEN when all are good, they are put together and rewarded as one whole exercise. If one link weakens and the chain is rewarded, your rewarding a weak link. Make sense?


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## Kori Bigge (Nov 28, 2007)

Thanks for your help, Bob! I have yet another question.

When performing the series, do you mark _each_ exercise as it's performed correctly, then reward only once at the end? Or do you just mark at the _end of the series,_ then reward once? 

I know these questions are really basic, but since this is my first time training a dog, I want to know if I'm doing it right...thanks for helping an inexperienced, but enthusiastic newbie!


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## Bob Scott (Mar 30, 2006)

The idea in any competition is to go through a complete exercise without rewarding or re cueing. No reason to do that in training as long as you keep markers and rewards very random. Use a bridge (calm, "Good Dog") to continue to the next exercise without breaking with the marker.

NEVER mark without rewarding. Even if you make a mistake and mark at the wrong time, ALWAYS reward. You don't want that marker to loose it's value. 
At worst, you just giving the dog a free treat. Not like it's a poorly timed correction that will confuse the crap out of the dog, not to mention the loss of trust you can create with poorly timed corrections.


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## Kayce Cover (Oct 30, 2007)

I agree that it is good to change reinforcers. When you are effectively using verbal reinforcers, you do not need to feed every terminal bridge (click for clicker trainers). We train animals to be perfectly still for various applications for up to/over an hour at a time, and use Intermediate and Terminal Bridges without food, all the time and see absolutely no weakening of behavior. I believe that the fear of weakening of the Bridges comes from incorrect interpretation of scientific paper/data by non-scientists, which was then handed on to practitioners. In fact, timing is more important in keeping animal interest than food, or toys, in many events. Toys and food can cause arousal and interfere with learning.

Also, I routinely link behaviors (to avoid habits of stopping at a particular point) but we try not to allow the behaviors to be chained (which can cause some rote responses. For example, I have a very obliging dog, trained by someone else, who equates sitting with being good. I was working on a looped behavior of bow-down-sit-stand-bow-down-sit-stand... but every time he was bridged for stand, he immediately sat, breaking the progression to the next behavior. We got through it, but it is a major pain, compared to just not creating rote patterns to begin with.

Regards,
Kayce


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