K9 Clicking
Poisoned Cues
                         Poisoned Cues: What Are They and Why Do We Need to Worry About Them?

What is a cue?
      A cue is any stimulus that precedes a behavior and tells the dog to perform the behavior.  This stimulus can be anything
that the animal can perceive: verbal, visual, a scent, a sound, a touch, or environmental.  It can be trained; the word “sit” is a
common verbal cue that means “put your rear on the ground”.  Or it can simply be learned from association; when I scrape
the bottom of my ice cream bowl, my dogs perceive that as the cue to get up and make sad, starving dog faces so I will let
them lick the bowl.  
     For the purpose of this article, I am going to focus on cues that we purposely teach our dogs.  
     When we teach our dogs using positive reinforcement, the dog learns a pattern.  Cue -> Behavior -> Reinforcement.  
Because of this chain of events, the cue in itself becomes reinforcing to the dog.  The dog learns that the cue is an
opportunity to perform a behavior and therefore, receive reinforcement.  Cues can then be used as the glue to hold complex
behavior chains together.  In a behavior chain, each cue that is given reinforces the behavior that preceded it.  The cue
actually acts as a click!  This is precisely how a freestyle team can perform through an entire song without any primary
reinforcement until the end of the routine.  The reinforcement for each behavior in the routine was the cue to do the next
behavior.  
     So what does all of this have to do with a poisoned cue?  First, let’s define a poisoned cue.

What is a poisoned cue?
      A poisoned cue is a cue that is no longer reinforcing for the dog.  A cue can be, or become, poisoned for several
reasons.  Let’s use the cue “sit” as an example:
     * The cue could have been taught using a combination of punishment and rewards.  If “sit” was taught using lure/reward
or was captured with a marker (click), and then the dog was punished for not sitting, the cue would become poisoned.  The
cue could not be reinforcing as there would always be the worry of “will something good happen or will something bad
happen?”  
     There is another side effect to training using a click to mark a behavior and punishment to “correct” behavior.  In positive
reinforcement training, the click becomes a reinforcer because it is paired so many times with a reward.  Technically
speaking, the click becomes a secondary reinforcer.  The dog will have positive associations with the click.  
     If we then introduce punishment into the training, the click will then be associated with the punishment and lose its power
as a reinforcer.  Suddenly, the click that was so clear and powerful becomes at the best ambiguous, and at the worst, a
conditioned punisher.   
     * The cue may have been taught using positive methods but during the training of the cue, a punishing event occurred.  
Using our example, “sit”, the behavior could have been captured with a click and then rewarded with a treat.  The cue is
added, and we have cue (verbal “sit”) -> behavior (rear on floor) -> reinforcement (treat).  This cue could then be poisoned if
the owner decided to reward the dog with a pat on the head.  If the dog does not like a pat on the head, it is not reinforcing
for the dog.  A pat on the head could actually be an aversive for the dog.  Soon the dog will avoid sitting in order to avoid the
possibility of a pat on the head.  
     * A cue could become poisoned if a punishing event is associated even one time with the cue.  Perhaps you are cooking
and ask your dog to “sit”.  A frying pan falls from your hand and crashes to the floor and startles your dog.  From now on,
“sit” may be a poisoned cue for your dog.  
   
Why Do We Need To Worry About Poisoned Cues?
      As you can see from the examples above, a cue can become poisoned very easily. Anything aversive associated with the
cue can poison the cue, and the cue can be poisoned after just one exposure to the aversive.  One thing we must keep in
mind is that what we consider an aversive and what the dog perceives as an aversive may be two entirely different things.  
We humans may think that a pat on the head is a reward while the dog is cringing at the thought of it.  In other words, it can
be very easy to poison a cue.
     As owners, we need to be very cognizant about our interactions with our dogs.  Are we patting our dog’s head when he
doesn’t like it?  Are we punctuating the cue with a slight tug on the leash?  Even the slightest tug can be seen as an aversive
to some dogs.  Watch your dog’s body language as you interact with him.  If you pat your dog’s head, is he squinting and
pulling back or pushing his head into your hand?
     As dog trainers, not only do we need to teach owners how to watch their dog’s body language, but we also need to watch
the dog’s body language as cues are being introduced during training.   Unfortunately, we trainers all know that the dogs that
come to us for training are rarely a blank slate.  They may be arriving with a whole set of poisoned cues.  It is our job to
observe body language as the cues are introduced to see if they have already been poisoned.  Was training going smoothly
until the cue was introduced?  Is the dog suddenly offering calming signals or displacement behaviors?  Did the dog
suddenly walk away from training?  It is a good idea to have the owner list cues that the dog has been taught before you
begin training with the dog.  This is especially important for a crossover dog or a dog that has been adopted without any
knowledge of prior training.
     Those of you who participate in competitions with your dog should also be on the lookout for poisoned cues.  If a
poisoned cue makes its way into a freestyle routine, that will be a very week or broken link in a very long behavior chain.  If  
your dog is falling apart in the obedience ring, is a poisoned cue to blame?  

Poisoned cues come in many forms.
      Unfortunately, any cue can become poisoned.  A good example of a poisoned cue that you may not have considered is a
dog’s name.  I had a client once with a young puppy named Sammy.  During one of my visits to Sammy’s house, I was
working with his owners on teaching him to give eye contact when they said his name.  We started by clicking and rewarding
for offered eye contact.  Sammy was engaged and enjoying the training session.  I then asked his owners to say his name
and click when he looked at them.  The moment they said “Sammy”, the poor puppy tucked his tail, ducked his head, ran and
hid under the couch.  I later found out that the owners had often punished Sammy and would yell, “SAMMY! NO!!!!”  The
owners had not realized that poor Sammy was associating his name with punishment.  
     An example of an unusual poisoned cue occurred with my own dog, Karma.  Karma had been training for search and
rescue.  She was progressing quite well with her training as an area search dog.  Suddenly, Karma’s performance began to
drop off.  She would come within 10’ of locating the “victim” and then begin offering displacement behaviors.  Her reward for
finding the hidden person was a game of tug that she had dearly enjoyed, but she suddenly began to squint, cringe and
scream when the tug was presented.  We immediately discontinued the use of the tug and I took her to the vet for a full
physical work up.  I was worried that she had an abscessed tooth or some other injury that would cause her to fear the tug.
A few training sessions later, I discovered the cause of the problem as I watched another team member reward his dog with a
tug.  This handler would slap his boot or his leg with the tug to tease the dog and get it riled up, then slap the sides of the
dog’s head before giving it the tug.  For his dogs it was like pouring gas on a fire.  It got them cranked.  I had not known that
he had tried rewarding my dog in this way.  Karma is a very soft dog and could not tolerate a slap near the face.  Once was
enough for her to be forever fearful of tugs.
     Unfortunately, not only was she fearful of tugs, she was also fearful of the phrase, “Good dog”, as she was told that while
she was being slapped on the side of the face.  Even two years later, if I say “good dog” with my hand or any other object
near her head, she will cringe and cry out.  
     This is a good example of a behavior chain that fell apart because of a poisoned cue.  The chain is: “go find” (cue) ->
search (behavior) -> perceive scent (cue) -> follow scent (behavior) -> locate victim (cue) -> bark (behavior) -> play tug
(reward).  Karma would perform the chain almost all the way until the end of following the scent, at which point she would
begin offering displacement behaviors because locating the victim had become a poisoned cue.  
     One slap on the side of the face, which was rewarding for other dogs, had unraveled two years of training.

What do we do about a poisoned cue?
      Now that I have you worried and looking for poisoned cues around every corner, I have some good news.  Poisoned cues
are fairly easy to fix.  All you have to do is re-capture or re-shape the behavior and add a new cue.  It is very important to
actually re-teach the behavior as you cannot just transfer a poisoned cue to a new cue.  Unfortunately, if you try to transfer a
poisoned cue, all the baggage of the poisoned cue gets transferred along to the new cue.  So it’s best to not try to cut
corners.  Don’t worry; your dog will remember the behavior, so reshaping will most likely happen pretty fast.  Add that new
cue and rest easy knowing that you have put your dog at ease by throwing out that poisoned cue.