A marker is a bridge. The click — or the word yes — tells the dog that the thing
it was doing at that instant is what earned the food. All of its power is in the instant.
You get one button. The dog is a learning agent that credits whatever it was actually doing
when you pressed it, and then offers more of that.
1
Pair it first. A click that has never been followed by food is only a noise. Six pairings and it starts to mean something.
2
Mark the instant, not the idea. Reinforcement strengthens whatever is happening when the marker fires. Half a second late and you paid for the dog standing back up.
3
Split the behaviour. You cannot ask for the finished trick. Mark the nearest approximation, then raise the bar one small step at a time.
4
One D at a time. Duration, distance and distraction are three separate axes. Push two in the same rep and the behaviour falls apart.
5
Keep paying. A dog that has earned nothing for twenty seconds stops offering and goes shopping for something else to do.
HOW THIS YARD WORKS
Nothing here is corrected. There is no punishment available to you, because Pawstead training is
reward-based: the only tool in the game is the timing of the reward. When the dog gets worse, it is
because you paid for the wrong instant.
SPACE or tap the yard mark DRAG orbit ↑ ↓ raise / lower the bar C call the dog 1 2 3 duration / distance / distraction R restart M mute