(Mods - I'm not sure if this is the best place to post this, if not, please feel free to move it! )

I've had to take a brief training hiatus while training my puppy, who is now 6 months old, for a couple of weeks due to surgery. Before we took our break, I had him trained with a few marker words. I had him trained so that "good" meant, "Yes, I like what you are doing, keep doing it!" (I believe this is a bridge marker) and with "Yes" meaning, "Yes, that's great, you're done and can stop!"

I did this using techniques I learned through the Michael Ellis training with food videos and techniques I picked up elsewhere, mostly by feeding treats while the dog kept position and saying "Good. Good <sitz, plotz, etc>" Then, when done, I'd do a release event, moving the food so that he would have to change out of the position and saying "Yes!" and doing a little play or petting.

Now, after the break, it seems like he has gotten confused and will release right after I say "Good" or "Good <plotz, sitz, etc>." I've basically backed up to how I originally trained them and this seems to be helping, but I was curious about any other ideas.

Thank you!

Hi, Karen,

I would back WAY up and re-load my marker. Then I would re-teach my commands so far. It will all go swiftly as the dog recalls the original marker training.

I would completely skip all duration work for the time being, until I had the commands and the marker solid.

The intermediate bridge for introducing duration can wait for now .... I wouldn't want to introduce (or re-introduce) any duration until everything else was back to being solid.


"Before we took our break, I had him trained with a few marker words. I had him trained so that "good" meant, "Yes, I like what you are doing, keep doing it!" (I believe this is a bridge marker) and with "Yes" meaning, "Yes, that's great, you're done and can stop!""

The terminal marker (in this case, "yes!") needs to be absolutely solid before any thought is given to a bridge (in this case, "good") for duration.

Make sense?

 Quote: Connie Sutherland

Hi, Karen,

I would back WAY up and re-load my marker. Then I would re-teach my commands so far. It will all go swiftly as the dog recalls the original marker training.

I would completely skip all duration work for the time being, until I had the commands and the marker solid.

The intermediate bridge for introducing duration can wait for now .... I wouldn't want to introduce (or re-introduce) any duration until everything else was back to being solid.


"Before we took our break, I had him trained with a few marker words. I had him trained so that "good" meant, "Yes, I like what you are doing, keep doing it!" (I believe this is a bridge marker) and with "Yes" meaning, "Yes, that's great, you're done and can stop!""

The terminal marker (in this case, "yes!") needs to be absolutely solid before any thought is given to a bridge (in this case, "good") for duration.

Make sense?

Yes, it does and I think that's exactly what I'll do, particularly since I was starting to feel a little frustrated during the obedience portion of practice this past week.

I'll work tonight on reloading the terminal marker "Yes!", rewarding for focus...and just playing to get the energy out a bit and have some fun. We're also planning on practicing tracking some this weekend, which he LOVES, so that should help get us back on track.

We have some very advanced puppies in our club, raised by people who've trained in Schutzhund for years and years, so I have to remind myself that most dogs don't start doing more intense obedience training until a year or more and it's ok if it takes us longer than them. Another factor is his Saint side and that giant breeds often take a bit longer to mature, so we may need to slow down and enjoy the puppy days longer than other dogs of the same age in the club. I really should just have his current age despite his size constantly in my mind. It's hard to keep realistic expectations when your 6 month old puppy is pushing 70lbs. LOL!

one other thing karen . . .

michael will discourage the use of the bridge with the command , as in , " good sit " .

it makes sense to us because we understand the meaning of the words , but for the dog you are confusing the command with the bridge marker . remember , to the dog they are just sounds that come to be associated with the particular behaviour we train them to mean .

also , by doing that , you will eventually diminish the power that each of those sounds has come to mean to the dog .

keep them separate , maintain your consistency and those word/sounds will gain more power as a specific meaning more clearly understood by the dog .





ps , i would like to see a picture of that dog .

With one of my dogs the bridge has to be calm and quiet. Gooooood stay, etc. If I use the same tone/inflection that I do with his "yes" marker he'd be off the charts.
The other dog I could jump up and down yelling "GOOD DOG" as the bridge and he's be as steady as a rock.
You have to figure out was stimulates or calms the individual dog.
I agree about going back to basics.

Here are a couple of pictures of my "beast."

And this one shows his body a bit better...


You can just barely see the Saint Bernard in him, mostly around the muzzle, but his coloring looks nothing like a Saint and most people guess that he's just a full-grown GSD or mix thereof.

We have been going back to basics and it's working very well. For now, I've just been working on reloading the terminal marker with very easy commands and rewarding focus and I think we're coming back around again and training is going a lot better!

Thank you all!

As far as adding the command to the bridge marker, that was advice from our club's training coordinator. I can see where it might reinforce the command, but I can also see where it might cause confusion with the bridge marker. When I do go back to adding the bridge marker back in for duration commands, I think I'll start leaving out the command with the bridge since that was working well for us before.

Hmmmm.

I can see the point of what the coordinator is saying.

For me, though, and I will be very interested in hearing what others think, I prefer (like you) that the command not be mixed into any other verbalizing. I like the clean command, IB, and TB.

My IB (intermediate bridge, such as I use for duration),in fact, is very very brief and repetitious. "Good," for me, becomes more like a monotone "good-good-good-good" rather than actual separate words.

Again, I will love to read what others say about this. For me, the IB was a tad trickier to master than the command or the TB. I wanted to encourage the dog but not "put an exclamation point on" my verbalizing. I didn't want what I was saying to sound "final" in any way, including not sounding like I was giving the command again.

I also repeat the bridge multiple times. Fortunately the dog picks it up quickly and I can drop it asap.
Without it in the beginning of a new behavior he's way to excitable to use a bridge by itself.

 Quote: Bob Scott

... I agree about going back to basics.

How's it going, Karen?