I got an email this week from someone who signed up for KNOW Games at The Agility Challenge and then wrote back to say they didn’t think it was for them. Their reasoning: their dog is sensitive, and they don’t want to use any “negativity.”
I want to address that head-on, because I hear different versions of this pretty often, and I think it’s costing sensitive dogs the exact thing they need most.
Here’s the reframe: a no reward marker is not negativity. It’s information.
Think about the hot and cold game. If you’ve ever played it, you know how it works — someone hides an object, and you search for it while they tell you “hot” or “cold” depending on how close you are. Sometimes, you get even more, with “warmer” and “colder” feedback.
Now imagine playing that game with only “hot,” and total silence every time you’re cold. No feedback. No signal. Just guessing.
That would be frustrating for anyone. But it would be especially hard on someone who already lacked confidence in the game, or wasn’t sure they were any good at it. That person doesn’t need less information. They need more of it. Clear, consistent, honest information about when they’re getting warmer and when they’re going the wrong direction.
That’s exactly what a no reward marker does for your dog. It’s the “cold” in a game that also has “hot.” Without it, silence becomes ambiguous, and ambiguity is much harder on a sensitive dog than a clear, calm piece of information ever will be.
Sensitive dogs need structure even more than confident dogs do, because they’re the ones most likely to spiral when they don’t know what’s expected or how they’re doing.
Reframing your no reward marker from “something negative” to “something informative” will change your training, and it’ll change it MOST for that sensitive dog you’re worried about protecting.
This isn’t a side note in KNOW Games. It’s the whole point. As far as I can tell, I’m the only person in this sport teaching reward markers AND no reward markers as a matched set, on purpose, instead of pretending one of them doesn’t exist. When I stopped playing the Hot/Cold game with my dogs with one hand tied behind my back, EVERYthing got better for ALL of us….but ESPECIALLY for my most sensitive dogs.
If you’ve been sitting on the fence because you thought “no reward marker” meant “harsh,” that’s exactly the belief I built this course to change. It’s only available as part of a membership at The Agility Challenge, which you can join for a month or a year, your choice.
Don’t leave your most sensitive dog dangling in the wind, confused and anxious, with only a partial set of rules for the games you want to play! Check out KNOW Games HERE.