Marker Training with Rewards vs Bribery

By Adrienne Mesko

A very common question I get from clients is whether or not their dog will need rewards to perform behaviors after training. The answer is a little bit complicated, but I am going to attempt to answer it in this article. Here at MondioPup we use a lot of rewards in training. If the dog has an interest in food or toys, we will use one or both to provide rewards throughout the training process. A common misunderstanding about rewards based training is that it is bribery, and that once the food or toys disappear, the training does also. First of all, some kind of reward should be a part of your dog's long term plan for training maintenance, exercise and relationship building. I will go over that later, but there will always be rewards in your dog's life, you should have input in deciding what those rewards are-- dogs don't tend to make the best reward choices when left to to make up their own minds. Secondly, it isn't bribery if you utilize a marker system to train and maintain behaviors.

I'd like to clear up one thing first. Using marker system is very different from the technique of luring a dog. To lure a dog is simply to use visible food or a toy to guide his body into the place you want it to be until you can create fluency in that behavior, then put the behavior onto a verbal cue and fade out the lure and use markers/rewards afterwards. Luring takes advantage of the dog's natural focus on the reward itself to achieve a behavior. We commonly use this for positions such a sit, down, place, and heel. Once the behavior is learned, we no longer need the dog to see the reward to know what position we want him to be in. The technique works very well to create motivated behaviors, but it is not something that we use once the dog is fluent in a particular behavior. Luring may be closer to what some would call “bribery” as the dog is focused on the food or toy rather than the person, but lures are just a teaching technique and are quickly faded away.

Food or toy rewards used within a marker system are part of a long term training program for dogs trained within our system, which is also the system used by top sport dog trainers throughout the world. If we are lucky enough to have a dog that shows an interest in food or toys, we will absolutely take full advantage of this. Not every dog fits into this category, and for some dogs we rely on other rewards such as praise. For the dogs that show a mild interest in food or toys, we may first look to enhance their interest by developing their food drive and/or toy drive. We do this with food by getting rid of the food bowl and feeding them exclusively by hand in a motivating way, and we do this with toys by picking up any “free” toys off of the floor so they are not always available and doing short play sessions with lots of fun toy chasing. When the reward motivation comes up a bit, and the dog comes to understand that the rewards come through engaging with the trainer, very quickly we see the dogs are more interested in training sessions. We can then begin to use marker words in our sessions.

The marker words “good” and “yes” mark the moment in time the dog is doing the thing that we want. The word “good” means, 'I like what you are doing, keep doing it' and “yes” means 'I like what you did there, you may now stop what you are doing and access your reward.' The marker word is used at the very moment the behavior has met the criteria you are looking for. That word stamps that exact moment in time and then after the word has been said, a reward is delivered.

The most important part of the difference between bribery and using marker training and rewards is that the dog's action is marked in time with a word and at that time no food or toy visible to the dog. The reward is delivered several seconds after the marker word is used. For example, if I use the word “come” and my dog looks up to locate me and I am standing normally, in a relaxed position not indicating that I am holding a reward, then the dog begins to excitedly come to me and I mark his action with the word “yes” and then reach for his food or toy, the dog is on his way to not relying on food or toys to recall. When the dog made the decision to come, could he see that I had food or toys? No. I simply marked the moment in time that the dog made a good decision, and then a reward came. I was not bent over, holding food or toy in hand, begging or bribing for a behavior, giving the dog the opportunity to weigh the value of what was in my hand against whatever the environment was providing. I marked the good decision to come and a reward came after. He completed the recall to access the reward I was holding. This seemingly subtle difference is actually an incredibly powerful training tool, and while it seems so simple it is actually something that needs practice, ideally without a dog in front of you before it can be done reliably. The concept is very simple, but can be difficult to master.

The idea that a dog should operate permanently without rewards is a flawed concept. Rewards should never go away permanently. This does not mean that you will rely on them day in and day out for simple commands, but you should not be focused on getting rid of them completely. Intermittent rewards keep behaviors maintained and keep you more relevant to your dog. They also keep the rewards themselves rewarding. Dogs will find rewards in other places if they aren't provided for them, and self rewarding behaviors such as digging holes, chewing up things and barking will fill in that gap. Also, your dog will always need to eat food so intermittent treat or kibble rewards are a no-brainer. Intermittent means the dog will not know when they are coming, nor how high value the reward will be. You may offer something as simple as a few pieces of kibble, or it could be a pile of steak trimmings. By intermittently marking a really good decision with the word “yes” and following it with a reward, you will keep your dog addicted to completing the behaviors you are asking for in the same way us humans play slot machines. We could pull the lever 10 times before a reward was provided, but the memory of how we felt about that one reward kept us there continuing to pull the lever, even without reward.

The trick in general is to always stay a few steps ahead of your dog and to keep them guessing. Don't make it your goal to get off of rewards. They should be a part of a long term plan for harmonious living with your canine companion.

Dog trainer Adrienne Mesko and her dog Bette competing at the 2018 USMRA Nationals in Cleveland, Ohio. Photo by Brian Aghajani

Dogs must perform all obedience, jumping and protection exercises without reward from the handler. Bette performed beautifully without reward of food or toys, thanks to thoughtful use of marker training and intermittent rewards both on and off the field.