I am proud to say that the mark has officially been charged! Keiko confirmed this for me today after a long walk on campus. I was in my room and wandering about, waiting for her to lose interest in me. When she did, I said "yes" and her head snapped in my direction looking for her treat! To be sure this concept is clear, I will probably charge the mark in the living room in two short sessions before her breakfast and dinner tomorrow and again outside the following day. For the time being, any new behaviors taught will be done in my room. Currently I am marking her entrance to the kennel. Previously I was just praising for going into the crate which was working well. I will transition it to marker training...simply because I can, lol. Once I am sure that she understands the command "go in your kennel" then I will wean off of the mark and onto pure praise with the occasional reward - such as getting to come right back out or getting a tasty treat or a special toy (i.e. her peanut butter filled kong).
To charge the mark in marker (also known as clicker) training, you must give your mark and immediately follow with a high value reward. Many people have heard of clicker training, which is a form of marker training in which a clicker is used to mark a desired behavior. For a number of reasons which I will discuss in a later post, I prefer to use a verbal marker. Specifically - the word "yes!". The point of this training method is to teach the dog that whatever they were doing when you gave their mark was correct and their reward is coming. The theory is that this style of training makes up for the 2-3 second delay that may come in rewarding a dog for a desired behavior (say, for example, you're doing a down-stay at a distance.)
When I originally started charging the mark, I would say "yes", pause, and then reward. During the pause, Keiko was sometimes able to sit or down. (Both commands which I had previously taught her) I decided after a few days of this that I didn't think this was the response I was looking for. I did a bit of problem solving and consulted the Leerburg forums and decided that the pause I was giving between the yes and the reward was too long. So I went back to square one. To charge the mark I held an even number of treats in both hands, gave the mark and then immediately gave the reward. Now that Keiko looks at me expecting a treat when she hears the word "yes", I will probably give a couple of seconds pause between the yes and the reward so that she knows that it may take a second, but the reward is coming. After a brief session of this, I will move on to actually using the mark to train new behaviors. Once I apply this to training new behaviors, there will be NO MORE charging the mark! Unless I decide to add an additional mark (i.e. the word "good" or using the clicker).
I also watched a video by a dog trainer that reminded me of why I was previously opposed to the idea of marker (specifically clicker) training. That I may discuss at another time or add an amendment to this post which explains why. While at first I was a bit confused as to what I wanted to do, I'm glad that I watched the video because it reminded me of my purpose for using MT and the direction I wanted to go with it - the idea is to use MT to teach the new behaviors, then to phase the food reward out save for on random occasion. At this point in time, I also prefer to us MT to train commands which don't come naturally to the dog - i.e. tricks and behaviors required for working dog (specifically SAR at this point in time) training. I also want to use it to train a few games that you can play with a dog that is marker trained. I previously was not going to use it to train behaviors such as sit, down, etc. but I may try it on the down and see how I feel about it.
I need to get some pictures of Keiko in the pool. I've attached a photo at the bottom of this post which isn't great, but it is recent - I snapped it on my iPhone two days ago. I hope to post more often but between class, work, and puppy I can't always find time to blog.
Have a great night!
No comments:
Post a Comment