Marker Word — Day 1 with your dog

What you need

🍗20 high-value treats — boiled chicken, string cheese, or freeze-dried liver. Not kibble. The reflex you're building needs a reward worth building it for.
🏠A quiet room with no other distractions — no other dogs, no TV, no people moving around.
⏱5 minutes. Hard stop. More is not better on Day 1.
🗣️Your chosen marker word — "yes," "yep," or "nice." One syllable. Say it out loud once right now so you know how it sounds.

Your Day 1 protocol

60 seconds

Load 10 repetitions

Stand in your quiet room with your dog nearby — sitting, standing, or lying down, it doesn't matter. Say your marker word once, in a calm, neutral tone. Immediately give one treat. That's it. Don't ask for anything. Don't reward a behavior. Word → treat, word → treat, 10 times with 3-second gaps between reps. No enthusiasm, no "good boy" after. Just the word and the food.

60 seconds

Short break

Put the treats in your pocket. Let your dog sniff around, breathe, reset. You're not on break — you're watching. Notice if your dog starts checking in with you. That's the reflex starting to load.

60 seconds

Load 10 more repetitions

Same as Step 1. Word → treat, 10 times, neutral tone, 3-second gaps. You've now done 20 repetitions — one loading session. That's all Day 1 requires.

30 seconds

Test the reflex

Walk to the other side of the room. When your dog is not looking at you, say your marker word once in a normal voice. Don't call their name first. Just the marker word. If your dog snaps attention to you immediately — that's the reflex forming. Give a treat. If they don't react yet, that's normal for Day 1. It takes 3–5 sessions to fully load.

If your dog doesn't orient to you on the reflex test, that's data — not failure. The Pavlovian reflex takes repetition to condition. Run 3 loading sessions across the next 2 days and test again. Puppies under 10 weeks sometimes need 5+ sessions before the reflex is reliable.

Why this is the first skill we teach

The marker word is not a trick. It's the communication bridge between the moment a behavior happens and the reward that reinforces it. Without it, your dog is guessing which part of a 3-second behavior sequence earned the treat. With a loaded marker, you can mark a specific 0.1-second moment — a nose touch, a glance, a paw lift — with precision that's otherwise impossible.

Jason loaded "yes" with Baelor in the first 3 days. By Week 2, he could mark Baelor's rear foot placement during a sit from across the room. That level of precision is only possible because the word has a pre-built reward expectation. Every skill in this curriculum is built on top of this reflex. It's worth 3 sessions of your time to make it airtight.

Ready? Go train with your dog.

5 minutes. High-value treats. Quiet room. That's it.

✅ First session logged.

That's the hardest part. The first rep is always the activation moment — the moment this stops being theoretical.

Tomorrow: try Nose Touch → ← Back to dashboard

Create a free account to log this session and track your progress.

Start free — no credit card →