After the Frontier’s publication “Effectiveness of Marker Training in Detection Dogs” https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/veterinary-science/articles/10.3389/fvets.2025.1538452/full, there has been a lot of buzz on all sides about the use of markers and the study itself.
I have heard everything from “Rah-Rah-Go-Markers” to comments essentially saying that Nosework dogs and pet dog handlers aren’t capable of using them effectively… and a lot of in between.
I have used markers since Day 1 though I am the first to admit that my marker use for a lot of years was only moderately effective. CAN you train without them or even ineffectively use them and get good results? Sure! Dogs are pretty smart at figuring things out. And clearly, effectiveness in delivery and knowledge in their use is essential if you intend to use them. That said, over the past few years, I personally have not only cleaned up my own use of them, but I have also introduced both mechanical markers and location specific markers into elements of my training. However, cleaning up my verbal marker made BY FAR THE BIGGEST IMPACT on my own training…. And it’s the reason why my students think I am often a broken record when I give feedback!
Cleaning up a verbal marker is actually REALLY easy… so is their use! Here are some suggestions to make using a marker EASY and EFFECTIVE in searching:
1) Determine which part of the behavior chain you want to mark. Remember Search, Locate, Report? Marking Nose On Source reinforces precise sourcing. This is when the dog’s nose settles on the hide location. IMPORTANT: YOU MUST KNOW WHERE THE HIDE IS!!! (No Blinds for this please)… easy peasy… nose settles, and you mark! My Intro students learn this from Day 1.
2) The marker must be separate from your motion. Dogs are NOT a verbal species. If they see you creeping in on them while they source, that becomes a de facto unintentional marker that CAN cause fringing or premature alerts. They may not HEAR your marker in that case.
3) The marker must be separate from your praise. Dogs are NOT a verbal species… CLEAR, CRISP, CONCISE… in fact, my verbal “Yes” is delivered in a way that they won’t hear in my normal course of conversation. (watch the video for an example).
The other thing to know is that there are different types of markers. In this example, I am using a “Terminal Bridge” (For information on Decoding Trainer Lingo go to K9Sensus Foundation post on Feb 6: https://www.facebook.com/photo?fbid=1236114917946600&set=a.595252945366137
). The Terminal Bridge ends the behavior and I reinforce the dog with food (or toy or whatever).
Also of note… because my marker is CLEAR… I can reward away from source if I want to…. it becomes my choice! If your marker is NOT clear or if you choose not to use one, you MUST reward at source in order to have any clarity in your training.
Effective marker use has become a way that I can more effectively communicate with my dog. I use effective markers at all stages of my dog’s training and find that it’s a communication tool that can run the gamut from increasing and teaching precision to tightening up a TFR to teaching the dog how to not overwork an inaccessible hide. Yeah it means as a trainer and handler I need to know a little bit about dog training… but it turns out that it’s actually kind of an easy bit to improve too!
Example video includes effective marker use for Nose on Source (end of “Locate”) and with a trained final response (end of “Report”) as well an an example of ineffective use (listen with sound ON to hear the marker)
