Who says three seconds? To me that`s actually a bit long to mark a behaviour. For instance if you`re teaching Give the ball back the Yes! marker should happen immediately. Three seconds gives the dog time to snatch it back and run off!
I think a reward can be voice, touch, food or play - as long as the dog likes it, it`s a reward.

I think it depends on what you're trying to teach. If I send my dogs off to search for a lost ball and tell them to go 'find it' I won't notice the instant they find it as I have 5 of them to watch, so as soon as I see one of them pick it up they get a 'Yaaay' but then again the reward is actually finding the ball. Some things in life are self rewarding.
Marking behaviours at a distance especially when they have their backs to you is also difficult.

This is true. My husky picked up everything very quickly. We couldn't teach her things fast enough, all it would take is two or three no's and one really good yes, and she knew what she was supposed to do...potty training was harder because we couldn't get her in the 3 second interval most of the time...and its such a complex behavior to understand that they need to go, hold it, inform the owner in some way and make sure it happens outside, but not on the welcome mat...she understood that she could go outside, but she also thought she could go inside (why not?). After 2 months of failing, we needed to go back and try to think of a way to reward her for holding it and informing us, not just the going outside. So we worked with the bell idea. It took her a day and a half to be potty trained after we did the bell, because now she had a definite way of saying "I need to go." As soon as she rang it we would jump up immediately and praise her (within that three seconds)...we weren't able to do that before.

Thats why clicker training work well (with some dogs). Because the instant they do something good, you can click them, which they know something good will happen when you do that....unfortunately, clicker training didn't work with mine, but I understand the theory and think its great when it is possible to train like that.

No neither do i, but that was the question that was asked....i think?

I wish vinnie had as much as three seconds...lol..

I think it works with all dogs - well apart from deaf of course - I've never met a dog it didn't work for, as long as you have the a reward that they value. I have seen it teaching completly different things because the owners timing is poor. We have a very intelligent patterdale in class with an owner who doesn't appear to like it or understand how to train it. He will ask it to sit, she sits, then hops up and dances around, he keeps saying sit, then clicks and rewards her......outcome....she dances really nicely, all the time for him! he has got better since he said to me one day "she can't stay still", i talked to him and explained exactly how he had taught her to do that".

We have had lots of deaf dogs in class and with one we tried a device that vibrated slightly, the theory being that it would be a bridging device and act as a marker like a clicker would. She was a whippet and it didn't really work with her as it used to make her shake......but it might have worked with a different dog!

A friend had a dog it didn`t work for! He panicked at the sound of the click. He was a rescue and had really bad associations with it

We did it for 5 weeks with no affect...as soon as we joined a different class that allowed us to say no, and to show her the right way, she picked up immediately. Mine needs to know what exactly is wrong, and what exactly is right. She's 2 years now...and she is starting to toe the line of what is wrong and what is right, but a quick "hey!" or "Pst!" and she gets that look like "I wondered if you noticed that...for now I will abide."

Huskies...gotta love 'em

Yes - that's one occasion where you might have difficulties. If the sound has bad associations from the past.

You can use non reward markers with clicker training too Luna kitty, and some people say it works faster, personally i use folded arms looking away.

We used that for manners...like jumping up, biting...that sort of stuff. We are very proud of our girl...and it took us a long time to train her, but as it stands, she is the best husky i have ever met when it comes to obediance (perfect recall) and the only husky that i know that can walk in perfect heel off leash in a distracting environment. At the rate we were going with clicker training, we would have never made it this far....

I think that should be all for now, because this is quite off topic.