Tennis Ball Marker Game

When we’re talking about markers, another thing that’s important to remember is that timing is critical! Try to time your marker so that it’s given at the exact moment your dog is performing a behavior you’d like to see repeated (after asking for a sit, we mark as soon as their butt touches the ground). At Busy Dog, we have a game we like to play to test the timing of our markers by teaching a tennis ball to land in our hands.

After practicing this exercise, what did you notice about the timing of your clicks? Did you click too early? Too late? Did you teach the tennis ball to land or fly?