Post by oksaradt on Sept 2, 2008 20:48:34 GMT -5
The roots are coming out of the blond dye job and we had a graduation of sorts. I’ve trained both males and females in the past, but Murphy was the first male ADT for HRD work. Perhaps this made me more sensitive to blond moments, but his lasted a long while (or so it seemed). True, to the adage of patience through the blond (or teenage) phase can produce great rewards, Murphy is rockin’
(Oh, on an aside, several of my students that read this regularly sent me emails saying, “what’s the deal?” in regards to the long pause between posts. Partly because I’ve had to deal with other teams lately that reminded me of the adage, “if you don’t have anything good to say then don’t.” The other part was this was my yearly social torture when I am called upon to cook for the vet clinic, family, and friends for the annual Pre-Labor Day picnic. I am sworn to produce three gallons of gourmet home-ice cream plus a dinner only fitting of such a desert. This year I slow-cooked ribs and brisket. The ice creams were Oreo, Rasberrly/Dark Chocolate/Almond, and Honey. The last two being experiments of which both turned out beyond expectations. On Monday, clean-up from the disc golf, volley ball, ping pong, and general adolescent mayhem takes up the rest of my time. Anyway, them’s my excuses and I’m stickin’ to ‘em.)
Murphy turns 1 year old on September 16th and so will ensue his official introduction into decomp. Like all handlers, I succumbed to a few moments of weakness with my dog, all but one were really his fault because of his nose and his drive. This last weekend though was totally on purpose to see if my theory is full of crap and to reap the benefit of a great source. I have now been bestowed upon by my employer to be the official creator of what are (affectionately called by the HRD world) cavity or body wipes. It is upon me to make sure that state dog teams have the opportunity to get these training aids if they so want them or request them. I have been flabbergasted (or maybe not) that two teams turned them down because they thought I’d mess with the scent to make my dogs look better and theirs to screw up. The nice way to respond to this is that I have only the victims and their families in mind when I create these scent aids. I really don’t care which dog teams make finds. I just want the finds to be made in a timely manner. I don’t want a body to needlessly turn into skeletal remains because a dog team didn’t have the right aids to train on. The not nice way to respond to this is in my files for me to read occasionally when I want a laugh at such fools. The closest I’ll come to the failure in their reasoning is to reference the Interpolation thread on here.
(Gross alert for those with weak imaginations, stop here)
Any HRD dog handler whose been whining, groveling, bartering, etc. to build a decent scent library and then suddenly finds themselves in charge of collecting scent sources to train with………..let’s just say that the doctors I work with have more reason now to give me worried looks as I was like a kid in a candy store. That some of where I was collecting can make even the strongest bad boy weak in the knees yet they only saw me with smiling eyes, sharpie, and collection containers looking like Scrooge McDuck viewing his pile of gold……….Maybe Uncle Fester might be a better image….*sigh*
ANYWAY, Murphy met two milestones in the past four days. First, there is a head of a national dog group that just swears up and down that dogs must be introduced to large sources or they often miss them. The theory is based on the narcotics story that dogs trained on a joint of pot will alert/indicated 100 feet away from a bale of the stuff. Murphy’s previous few exposures to tissue-related have been a fresh pelvic bone with the marrow still bloody that he chased down from 100s of feet away with me running after him not wanting to correct him in scent and going “sh*t sh*t sh*t sh*t” as I knew what he was after. It always turned out well, but I don’t like to get in the habit of breaking my rules. Along with other sources I collected was the collection sheet from an individual found after 3-4 days in 90+F days. I’ll leave it at that. This is an aid that is 7 feet by 4 feet spread out. After training some cross-dog teams on it, I decided to let Murphy get his shot. The aid was hidden from view unless you were within four feet of it. If you were a dog, you didn’t see it until you found it by scent as it was down slope from the field next to a pond to the north with the wind being ENE. Murphy worked out in front of me from 60 to 100 feet. When he happened upon the scent source, his first reaction was to bark at it as he traced the scent into the source and saw it from about two feet away. His next reaction was to look at me with huge eyes like a car collector looking at a ’69 Mustang….”This is Sooooo Coool!” Then we waited. The worst mistake a handler can make with something like this is to take over for the dog and tell it what to do. Murphy has been working other HRs for nearly a year, he knows what to do. My only job was to prevent him leaving the scent area or working the fringe (which a lot of area search dogs do). He came out, went back in (the brush was dead sumac with tall grass) pushing his way in, came out, for what seemed forever then he finally did his excited old man wheezy bark that shows part of him is still a puppy. I gave some verbal praise, but no reward. As he came out of the brush to find me to bark, I had to ask him to show me. Again, patience was the watch word as now I had to get close enough to see the paw or nose make a choice without guiding him in any way. After three tries and looks at me, he finally reached out and just barely tapped the sheet. I exploded with the ball and happy glee, lots of praise, lots of hooting, and he got a chunk of food when he brought me the ball back. To make me proud and to show me he liked both the work and the reward, he went back in on his own four more times to touch the sheet and get rewarded.
Tonight was the other half of Murphy’s graduation into the next level. I have 8 holes, six feet apart that were each made with two teeth or a small bone shard with the sources driven down small shafts made by a plumber’s probe three years ago. The soil has a high clay content and the holes closed back up at least 18 months ago. Old faded utility flags on the outside border tell me the lines where the intersections have a source down deep. Murphy has gotten to find one of these out of eight three times over the past month as a sort of double check when he seems to be burnin’ up the other problems and needs an extra challenge. This way I can raise the sensitivity bar without any pressure. Tonight, Murphy had to locate all eight sources just the same as if we were searching a cemetery. The outside temperature got up to 90 on my outside thermometer around 1500. We worked it at 1830 when the hurricane clouds were moving in, the air temperature now 81F and the soil temperature was 87.8F. We’d had rain last week and parts of the soil were still moist. Murphy didn’t have to put his nose down to target the sources, but he nailed all eight. He did have to put his nose to the ground to target for me with his paw before I’d reward, but I verbally praised for each bark. The depth of these sources varies from 18 inches to 22 inches if memory serves me right, maybe one deeper. I have a layer of shale at about two feet deep in that area.
The next stage is introducing all the tissue scents in various states: muscles, adipose, neural, blood, little composite bodies in mason jars with all the components that can be found, charred, water. As with the rest of my training philosophy, as this is all new, the problems become simpler at first and raise in complexity from here on out. Murphy will have to do all these the same as skeletal buried, surface, elevated, outside buildings, inside buildings, and in all the complicated situations my demented mind can think up from both imagination and past experiences.
Jim
(Oh, on an aside, several of my students that read this regularly sent me emails saying, “what’s the deal?” in regards to the long pause between posts. Partly because I’ve had to deal with other teams lately that reminded me of the adage, “if you don’t have anything good to say then don’t.” The other part was this was my yearly social torture when I am called upon to cook for the vet clinic, family, and friends for the annual Pre-Labor Day picnic. I am sworn to produce three gallons of gourmet home-ice cream plus a dinner only fitting of such a desert. This year I slow-cooked ribs and brisket. The ice creams were Oreo, Rasberrly/Dark Chocolate/Almond, and Honey. The last two being experiments of which both turned out beyond expectations. On Monday, clean-up from the disc golf, volley ball, ping pong, and general adolescent mayhem takes up the rest of my time. Anyway, them’s my excuses and I’m stickin’ to ‘em.)
Murphy turns 1 year old on September 16th and so will ensue his official introduction into decomp. Like all handlers, I succumbed to a few moments of weakness with my dog, all but one were really his fault because of his nose and his drive. This last weekend though was totally on purpose to see if my theory is full of crap and to reap the benefit of a great source. I have now been bestowed upon by my employer to be the official creator of what are (affectionately called by the HRD world) cavity or body wipes. It is upon me to make sure that state dog teams have the opportunity to get these training aids if they so want them or request them. I have been flabbergasted (or maybe not) that two teams turned them down because they thought I’d mess with the scent to make my dogs look better and theirs to screw up. The nice way to respond to this is that I have only the victims and their families in mind when I create these scent aids. I really don’t care which dog teams make finds. I just want the finds to be made in a timely manner. I don’t want a body to needlessly turn into skeletal remains because a dog team didn’t have the right aids to train on. The not nice way to respond to this is in my files for me to read occasionally when I want a laugh at such fools. The closest I’ll come to the failure in their reasoning is to reference the Interpolation thread on here.
(Gross alert for those with weak imaginations, stop here)
Any HRD dog handler whose been whining, groveling, bartering, etc. to build a decent scent library and then suddenly finds themselves in charge of collecting scent sources to train with………..let’s just say that the doctors I work with have more reason now to give me worried looks as I was like a kid in a candy store. That some of where I was collecting can make even the strongest bad boy weak in the knees yet they only saw me with smiling eyes, sharpie, and collection containers looking like Scrooge McDuck viewing his pile of gold……….Maybe Uncle Fester might be a better image….*sigh*
ANYWAY, Murphy met two milestones in the past four days. First, there is a head of a national dog group that just swears up and down that dogs must be introduced to large sources or they often miss them. The theory is based on the narcotics story that dogs trained on a joint of pot will alert/indicated 100 feet away from a bale of the stuff. Murphy’s previous few exposures to tissue-related have been a fresh pelvic bone with the marrow still bloody that he chased down from 100s of feet away with me running after him not wanting to correct him in scent and going “sh*t sh*t sh*t sh*t” as I knew what he was after. It always turned out well, but I don’t like to get in the habit of breaking my rules. Along with other sources I collected was the collection sheet from an individual found after 3-4 days in 90+F days. I’ll leave it at that. This is an aid that is 7 feet by 4 feet spread out. After training some cross-dog teams on it, I decided to let Murphy get his shot. The aid was hidden from view unless you were within four feet of it. If you were a dog, you didn’t see it until you found it by scent as it was down slope from the field next to a pond to the north with the wind being ENE. Murphy worked out in front of me from 60 to 100 feet. When he happened upon the scent source, his first reaction was to bark at it as he traced the scent into the source and saw it from about two feet away. His next reaction was to look at me with huge eyes like a car collector looking at a ’69 Mustang….”This is Sooooo Coool!” Then we waited. The worst mistake a handler can make with something like this is to take over for the dog and tell it what to do. Murphy has been working other HRs for nearly a year, he knows what to do. My only job was to prevent him leaving the scent area or working the fringe (which a lot of area search dogs do). He came out, went back in (the brush was dead sumac with tall grass) pushing his way in, came out, for what seemed forever then he finally did his excited old man wheezy bark that shows part of him is still a puppy. I gave some verbal praise, but no reward. As he came out of the brush to find me to bark, I had to ask him to show me. Again, patience was the watch word as now I had to get close enough to see the paw or nose make a choice without guiding him in any way. After three tries and looks at me, he finally reached out and just barely tapped the sheet. I exploded with the ball and happy glee, lots of praise, lots of hooting, and he got a chunk of food when he brought me the ball back. To make me proud and to show me he liked both the work and the reward, he went back in on his own four more times to touch the sheet and get rewarded.
Tonight was the other half of Murphy’s graduation into the next level. I have 8 holes, six feet apart that were each made with two teeth or a small bone shard with the sources driven down small shafts made by a plumber’s probe three years ago. The soil has a high clay content and the holes closed back up at least 18 months ago. Old faded utility flags on the outside border tell me the lines where the intersections have a source down deep. Murphy has gotten to find one of these out of eight three times over the past month as a sort of double check when he seems to be burnin’ up the other problems and needs an extra challenge. This way I can raise the sensitivity bar without any pressure. Tonight, Murphy had to locate all eight sources just the same as if we were searching a cemetery. The outside temperature got up to 90 on my outside thermometer around 1500. We worked it at 1830 when the hurricane clouds were moving in, the air temperature now 81F and the soil temperature was 87.8F. We’d had rain last week and parts of the soil were still moist. Murphy didn’t have to put his nose down to target the sources, but he nailed all eight. He did have to put his nose to the ground to target for me with his paw before I’d reward, but I verbally praised for each bark. The depth of these sources varies from 18 inches to 22 inches if memory serves me right, maybe one deeper. I have a layer of shale at about two feet deep in that area.
The next stage is introducing all the tissue scents in various states: muscles, adipose, neural, blood, little composite bodies in mason jars with all the components that can be found, charred, water. As with the rest of my training philosophy, as this is all new, the problems become simpler at first and raise in complexity from here on out. Murphy will have to do all these the same as skeletal buried, surface, elevated, outside buildings, inside buildings, and in all the complicated situations my demented mind can think up from both imagination and past experiences.
Jim