Post by oksaradt on Feb 5, 2008 21:27:41 GMT -5
One of the more popular trainers of search dog handlers, Jonni Joyce, put a post out this week trying to best demonstrate why it's unwise to train scent work all by your lonesome. One of the reasons is because most of us have at one time or still send our dogs cues as to where scent sources are or to give the alert/indication or basically cue the dog as to how to act. She seemed to feel that this was more prevalent with dog teams where the handler and dog stay within six feet of each other, but I've observed cueing going on from 50 feet away. It's a fear most handlers develop...."Did the dog get that or did I cue it?"
Over Dax's career I've adjusted my normal behavior to a norm of a lack of normal behavior to make sure I don't cue. This fear is one reason I try to get regular blind problems thrown in to make sure I'm not affecting my dog's performance. I know I can make Dax bark simply by meeting her stare, so I tend to watch her like a hawk but rarely meet her stare if I know she's in scent. I was taught to always move, never stand still. So, of course I had to make sure my dog could still work if I sit down and get comfy....it's not a big deal as long as she knows the paycheck is involved. I even attended one seminar where we had to dance the "boogaloo" around a van with music blaring while our dog worked. Some dog teams couldn't do this. *cough* I actually got into the song they gave me..."Wild Thang", such that my dog had to bark for a while to be heard over the music. That was accidentally a good thing.
[For you hunters, I imagine this isn't a big deal, either there's bird, fox, racoon, what have you OR there's not. For those of us that search for something we rarely get to see in real searches, this is a major insecurity. Imagine law enforcement might spend 10's of thousands of dollars over what you and your dog do.....best to be right.]
Recently I worked blinds with another handler where I quickly figured out that her dog only searched where ever the handler faced. This handler admitted that she'd been the head of her search team before moving and never trusted anyone else to set up blinds.......so, she always knew where the scent sources were. Since she was working my blinds, she didn't have a clue where the sources were. I suggested she'd need to face her entire area to make sure the dog covered the entire area. Eventually, she should train the dog where it doesn't care what she's doing in its pursuit of scent.
What's pretty common are those dogs that find scent, determine where the sources is, then they look to the handler as to what to do next. I have a friend going through this right now. It's not a case of her being too controlling. It's more a case that she's never had the patience or the fortitude to withhold the reward until the dog does the job it knows. I worked her dog without a problem by simply showing it the food reward, telling it to work, and then ignoring it until it did it's job. As the dog is highly food driven, it went right to the source in plain sight, checked it for scent, and did it's indication/alert in a manner of seconds. I'd simply conveyed to it, "no find, no chicken" in a blase tone. The dog knew it's job, but the handler liked to be in on the find. In a real search, we have no clue where the sources are so handlers are pretty much area management personnel for the dog (or should be if the dog is trained properly).
I've just mentioned a few of the cues and handler foibles. Most of us have no clue that we're doing them. I had one handler that expected her dog to bark on it's recall on a live find. Each time the dog returned to her, she made a snapping motion with her right hand. When she tested, I had to fail her because she made the snapping motion. Until we held her hands still in a 2nd run, she had no clue she was doing it as she literally ripped her hand out of the other evaluator's hand when her mind told her to send the subconscious cue.
So, yes, most assuredly, if at all possible we need to work in groups or pairs on a regular basis when working our dogs. We must not let our egos get in the way. We must not use criticism as a way to belittle the other handlers. We have to simply observe for the good of the dog and ultimatley for the good of those we search for.
In that same regard, there comes a time where you should feel confident that you and the dog can work blind problems. If you never feel confident in this, you should not be searching with the dog. Over the years, my attitude on dog work has gotten my dog some very nasty blinds (no big surprise there). On blinds, there will be times when your dog or you fail. It should be considered a learning opportunity rather than a crushing blow. I've observed driven personality handlers that (rather than admit that they missed the blind) will find fault with everyone else rather than themselves or their dog.
There are always going to be people that set up blinds that have no clue what scent does. Life happens. When disaster strikes, body parts rarely get thrown in nice predictable patterns. Now, granted, it's not natural for teeth to be found in an entirely enclosed container with no possible way for scent to escape, but I know of dog teams that got into their head that the dogs could smell the sources through the plastic. That I set up blinds for them with lots of empty plastic containers and skeletal sources in no containers what so ever..........welll, let's say they experienced a paradigm shift that day when they found ALL the brand new empty plastic containers and no a single bone. They had trained some cracker-jack plastic finding dogs though. I'm not trying to make light of their plight. They didn't know the error of their ways.
I have one handler that sets up blinds for me that rarely follows directions, easily forgets where she puts sources, and sometimes tells me the wrong area to search in. I love for her to set blinds up for me. She forces my dogs to be better. Hey, sometimes her blinds become real searches when she's got no clue where the sources ended up.
The plastic issue is why I don't use the common PVC containers to hide sources in except for water work. If I can walk down an aisle in the hardware store with my eyes closed and tell you when we've come up on the PVC pipes by the smell, I know the dogs are definitely using it as a clue. (I use PVC water containers of my own making because it's the only way I've found to prevent turtles from stealing/damaging my sources with any regularity.) I'm hoping that the PVC scent isn't as overwhelming in 10-50 feet of water.
So, our very containers can be cues for our dogs. When ever I can, I prefer to hide/place sources with no containers what so ever. At seminars, it's always risky to do this because you can never be sure if the other handlers have taught their dogs respect for my scent sources. I attended one seminar where another instructor had waited six months for a large quantity of adipocere (grave wax). She was in a rush and placed it all out together in a suet cage. When we picked up sources at the end of the day, the cage was open and the source was gone. Of course, none of the students owned up that their dog ate the stuff. She was S.O.L.
I tend to use mason jars and suet cages. I also leave clean blank containers out for my dogs to have to deal with. I replace lids periodically as they might saturate with contaminents over time that the dogs might come to believe is one of the scents they are to tell me about.
For blinds, the first eight years I trained in HRD, I had the perfect situation in that I had another dog handler paralleling my training in the same city. We would sneak over to an area near the other handler, set up a blind problem, and then call or mail the other handler to let them know they had a problem to solve. That other handler passed away and it's left a large void in my training, but I have other handlers helping out when they can. The other handler was a socialite and entertained charity clubs, social clubs, etc on a routine basis. One day I drove by to see all these Mercedes, BMWs, Corvettes in her long drive. I quietly got out and hid ten single teeth on some of the cars. I drove down the road to a phone booth and called her. To her credit, rather than panic, she told her club what I'd done. All these women raced out with her dog and cheered with each find. Our search team got a nice donation out of that prank of mine....who knew. There aren't too many handlers I feel confident I could pull that on these days.
May each of you find a training partner or team as special to hone your dogs' skills with.
Regards,
Jim
Over Dax's career I've adjusted my normal behavior to a norm of a lack of normal behavior to make sure I don't cue. This fear is one reason I try to get regular blind problems thrown in to make sure I'm not affecting my dog's performance. I know I can make Dax bark simply by meeting her stare, so I tend to watch her like a hawk but rarely meet her stare if I know she's in scent. I was taught to always move, never stand still. So, of course I had to make sure my dog could still work if I sit down and get comfy....it's not a big deal as long as she knows the paycheck is involved. I even attended one seminar where we had to dance the "boogaloo" around a van with music blaring while our dog worked. Some dog teams couldn't do this. *cough* I actually got into the song they gave me..."Wild Thang", such that my dog had to bark for a while to be heard over the music. That was accidentally a good thing.
[For you hunters, I imagine this isn't a big deal, either there's bird, fox, racoon, what have you OR there's not. For those of us that search for something we rarely get to see in real searches, this is a major insecurity. Imagine law enforcement might spend 10's of thousands of dollars over what you and your dog do.....best to be right.]
Recently I worked blinds with another handler where I quickly figured out that her dog only searched where ever the handler faced. This handler admitted that she'd been the head of her search team before moving and never trusted anyone else to set up blinds.......so, she always knew where the scent sources were. Since she was working my blinds, she didn't have a clue where the sources were. I suggested she'd need to face her entire area to make sure the dog covered the entire area. Eventually, she should train the dog where it doesn't care what she's doing in its pursuit of scent.
What's pretty common are those dogs that find scent, determine where the sources is, then they look to the handler as to what to do next. I have a friend going through this right now. It's not a case of her being too controlling. It's more a case that she's never had the patience or the fortitude to withhold the reward until the dog does the job it knows. I worked her dog without a problem by simply showing it the food reward, telling it to work, and then ignoring it until it did it's job. As the dog is highly food driven, it went right to the source in plain sight, checked it for scent, and did it's indication/alert in a manner of seconds. I'd simply conveyed to it, "no find, no chicken" in a blase tone. The dog knew it's job, but the handler liked to be in on the find. In a real search, we have no clue where the sources are so handlers are pretty much area management personnel for the dog (or should be if the dog is trained properly).
I've just mentioned a few of the cues and handler foibles. Most of us have no clue that we're doing them. I had one handler that expected her dog to bark on it's recall on a live find. Each time the dog returned to her, she made a snapping motion with her right hand. When she tested, I had to fail her because she made the snapping motion. Until we held her hands still in a 2nd run, she had no clue she was doing it as she literally ripped her hand out of the other evaluator's hand when her mind told her to send the subconscious cue.
So, yes, most assuredly, if at all possible we need to work in groups or pairs on a regular basis when working our dogs. We must not let our egos get in the way. We must not use criticism as a way to belittle the other handlers. We have to simply observe for the good of the dog and ultimatley for the good of those we search for.
In that same regard, there comes a time where you should feel confident that you and the dog can work blind problems. If you never feel confident in this, you should not be searching with the dog. Over the years, my attitude on dog work has gotten my dog some very nasty blinds (no big surprise there). On blinds, there will be times when your dog or you fail. It should be considered a learning opportunity rather than a crushing blow. I've observed driven personality handlers that (rather than admit that they missed the blind) will find fault with everyone else rather than themselves or their dog.
There are always going to be people that set up blinds that have no clue what scent does. Life happens. When disaster strikes, body parts rarely get thrown in nice predictable patterns. Now, granted, it's not natural for teeth to be found in an entirely enclosed container with no possible way for scent to escape, but I know of dog teams that got into their head that the dogs could smell the sources through the plastic. That I set up blinds for them with lots of empty plastic containers and skeletal sources in no containers what so ever..........welll, let's say they experienced a paradigm shift that day when they found ALL the brand new empty plastic containers and no a single bone. They had trained some cracker-jack plastic finding dogs though. I'm not trying to make light of their plight. They didn't know the error of their ways.
I have one handler that sets up blinds for me that rarely follows directions, easily forgets where she puts sources, and sometimes tells me the wrong area to search in. I love for her to set blinds up for me. She forces my dogs to be better. Hey, sometimes her blinds become real searches when she's got no clue where the sources ended up.
The plastic issue is why I don't use the common PVC containers to hide sources in except for water work. If I can walk down an aisle in the hardware store with my eyes closed and tell you when we've come up on the PVC pipes by the smell, I know the dogs are definitely using it as a clue. (I use PVC water containers of my own making because it's the only way I've found to prevent turtles from stealing/damaging my sources with any regularity.) I'm hoping that the PVC scent isn't as overwhelming in 10-50 feet of water.
So, our very containers can be cues for our dogs. When ever I can, I prefer to hide/place sources with no containers what so ever. At seminars, it's always risky to do this because you can never be sure if the other handlers have taught their dogs respect for my scent sources. I attended one seminar where another instructor had waited six months for a large quantity of adipocere (grave wax). She was in a rush and placed it all out together in a suet cage. When we picked up sources at the end of the day, the cage was open and the source was gone. Of course, none of the students owned up that their dog ate the stuff. She was S.O.L.
I tend to use mason jars and suet cages. I also leave clean blank containers out for my dogs to have to deal with. I replace lids periodically as they might saturate with contaminents over time that the dogs might come to believe is one of the scents they are to tell me about.
For blinds, the first eight years I trained in HRD, I had the perfect situation in that I had another dog handler paralleling my training in the same city. We would sneak over to an area near the other handler, set up a blind problem, and then call or mail the other handler to let them know they had a problem to solve. That other handler passed away and it's left a large void in my training, but I have other handlers helping out when they can. The other handler was a socialite and entertained charity clubs, social clubs, etc on a routine basis. One day I drove by to see all these Mercedes, BMWs, Corvettes in her long drive. I quietly got out and hid ten single teeth on some of the cars. I drove down the road to a phone booth and called her. To her credit, rather than panic, she told her club what I'd done. All these women raced out with her dog and cheered with each find. Our search team got a nice donation out of that prank of mine....who knew. There aren't too many handlers I feel confident I could pull that on these days.
May each of you find a training partner or team as special to hone your dogs' skills with.
Regards,
Jim