Post by oksaradt on Jan 25, 2008 16:18:41 GMT -5
Murphy just completed his 10 consecutive single-tooth surface finds this week. I got to hedge the odds in his favor as we’ve had some below freezing temperatures. The ground is running a bit above freezing. So, for those of you that remember your thermodynamics or chemistry, heat goes to cold. The teeth on the ground were more likely to push scent up into the air for the dog to find. Course, each tooth was placed down in 3-4 inches of dead grass and totally invisible to this handler. It was up to Murphy to show me he had made the find correctly. I do set up flags on the borders such that connecting the points gives me invisible intersecting lines to estimate with. I can tell you that this only gets me in the ball park as I was picking the teeth up yesterday and had to get Dax out to find two teeth for me. (Murphy got a fun day with bones)
When I set these courses up, I try to be as true to life as possible. I place all the flags first regardless of what scent dilemma might be at the intersections, so two of the ten turned out to be easy. Two of the ten turned out to be real boogers. Fortunately, for me, I’d set out 11 teeth as gophers tunneled through one of my teeth and sucked it down into their tunnel. Both Dax and Murphy tried to convince me the tooth was 2 feet away from where it should be. I had to get very close to find the linear disturbed earth along where the tooth should have been and where the dogs both said it was. I suppose I’ll use it as an extra credit problem down the road to see if we can recover it….good practice for real life.
Now, to the subject of my post. When I worked Murphy on the last six teeth it was a miserable day (for me), strong north wind, cold, overcast, blah. I’d forgotten my game face and went out to work Murphy very businesslike. I did all the right motions, but didn’t put myself in the head of a 20-week old puppy. Murphy quickly set me straight. As Tempe did this to me from time to time, it didn’t floor me, but it was a good reality check.
Murphy didn’t like the idea that I wanted to “SEE the TOOTH”. He wanted the party NOW. So, twice he got his point across by picking the tooth up in his mouth and spitting it at me. There’s something about an Airedale going Ptuhhh at you with a tooth flying that just cracks me up. I quickly became more the huckster at the Medicine Show and rewarded the young fellow with entertainment for his hard work.
With the two boogers, I confirmed they were hard with Dax even though I was pretty sure why the problems were difficult, topography, air flows, and such…boring technical stuff. Murphy’s solution to the really hard ones was to run back to the last one he’d found and re-find it quickly for another reward. Later on, he’ll get told, “yea yea, good job, we already found that one. Let’s move on.” Right now he gets rewarded for every find like that. My final solution to getting him to work the hard ones was to race back to those areas making a total fool of myself and acting like I’d lost something in the area. Murphy suddenly came to my aid and behold, he’d find a tooth.
So, if your dog appears to be going through the motions rather than actively searching, you may not be so lucky to have an Airedale that likes to make its own entertainment. Instead your dog may choose to self-reward on cat poo, rabbit poo, deer skat, left over McDonalds Big Mac, ….you get the picture.
Regards,
Jim Delbridge
When I set these courses up, I try to be as true to life as possible. I place all the flags first regardless of what scent dilemma might be at the intersections, so two of the ten turned out to be easy. Two of the ten turned out to be real boogers. Fortunately, for me, I’d set out 11 teeth as gophers tunneled through one of my teeth and sucked it down into their tunnel. Both Dax and Murphy tried to convince me the tooth was 2 feet away from where it should be. I had to get very close to find the linear disturbed earth along where the tooth should have been and where the dogs both said it was. I suppose I’ll use it as an extra credit problem down the road to see if we can recover it….good practice for real life.
Now, to the subject of my post. When I worked Murphy on the last six teeth it was a miserable day (for me), strong north wind, cold, overcast, blah. I’d forgotten my game face and went out to work Murphy very businesslike. I did all the right motions, but didn’t put myself in the head of a 20-week old puppy. Murphy quickly set me straight. As Tempe did this to me from time to time, it didn’t floor me, but it was a good reality check.
Murphy didn’t like the idea that I wanted to “SEE the TOOTH”. He wanted the party NOW. So, twice he got his point across by picking the tooth up in his mouth and spitting it at me. There’s something about an Airedale going Ptuhhh at you with a tooth flying that just cracks me up. I quickly became more the huckster at the Medicine Show and rewarded the young fellow with entertainment for his hard work.
With the two boogers, I confirmed they were hard with Dax even though I was pretty sure why the problems were difficult, topography, air flows, and such…boring technical stuff. Murphy’s solution to the really hard ones was to run back to the last one he’d found and re-find it quickly for another reward. Later on, he’ll get told, “yea yea, good job, we already found that one. Let’s move on.” Right now he gets rewarded for every find like that. My final solution to getting him to work the hard ones was to race back to those areas making a total fool of myself and acting like I’d lost something in the area. Murphy suddenly came to my aid and behold, he’d find a tooth.
So, if your dog appears to be going through the motions rather than actively searching, you may not be so lucky to have an Airedale that likes to make its own entertainment. Instead your dog may choose to self-reward on cat poo, rabbit poo, deer skat, left over McDonalds Big Mac, ….you get the picture.
Regards,
Jim Delbridge