Post by oksaradt on Nov 2, 2008 13:37:22 GMT -5
When I write these posts, I try to draw on events I’m seeing currently working with other dogs teams, my dogs, and my internet students. I don’t like to post when I’m ticked off as….well, there’s just no point as it won’t be helpful to those reading. I’ll rant, nothing improves by it, and it will push some people away. I’ve gotten opportunities in the past few weeks to work with lots of dog teams both locally and nationally. Regardless of years or months of experience, the same basic issues can inhibit the success of a dog team. So….that’s what I’ve decided to pontificate on today.
Types of Dog Teams
In my opinion, there are four types of dog teams out there:
1) Great Dog, a natural. Handler has poor timing or his/her own agenda. Result is average to poor dog team over time. Chances are the dog will begin inventing its own entertainment, which is detrimental to the search. If not and the dog does do its job, people often assume the handler is decent as well. Others will start looking to said handler for advice. Some handlers are honest and state its not them, it’s the dog. Others can add to the confusion. In the SAR dog world, it’s often best to see how their 2nd, 3rd, etc. dogs turn out before asking them for advice that might change your whole outlook on dog training. It’s very common to see a dog handler be a “one dog wonder” and to either give it up once that dog is done or to suffer miserably with the next dogs. You also will see handlers go through lots of dogs, blaming the dogs for the outcome till they luck upon another natural. If you’ve read my previous posts, you know I try to screen puppies till I find a great dog so that I can coast through its training. I don’t like the idea of washing lots of adult dogs out to find the natural that will make me look good.
2) Average dog, Experienced Decent Handler. The handler’s communication skills adequately convey to the dog what the job is and what the paycheck is. The result is going to be a happy average dog team. This dog team can be deployed in many situations, but not all and the team’s coordinator will have to be aware of where they best fit in. The handler will probably advise the coordinator of the dog’s limitations up front. This sort of dog team can be a very real asset to a search group.
3) Great dog and Great Handler(sometimes experienced). What makes a great handler is consistency, fast timing, and a chosen reward system that appeals to the dog as a pay check. I don’t care what the reward system is as long as it works in every venue. I’ve seen great clicker teams that began to struggle once the handler was forced to work blind. I think clicking can be a great for imprinting and fundamentals, but once the dog becomes the expert the handler can never know when he/she should click until the dog tells them. One of the greats in FEMA dog training was working an old native American cemetery after my dog and I. She asks me on a grave where the scent was so she could click her dog at the right time. Conditions were such that FOR MY DOG the scent was 1 foot off the ground over where the head was buried. I wouldn’t presume to tell this handler what scent combination her dog would perceive as significant to decide human remains were buried below…..this image makes perfect sense to me, I hope it does to others. The handler should have prepared her dog with enough training on old buried remains that she knew the composition of to recognize the dog’s behavior in scent and to allow the dog to work out its interpolation…..i.e. consistency. Anyway, we all hope this combination of good handler and great dog is what we achieve. The end result some of us call “the dance” as the dog knows what’s expected of it due to the handler’s good communication skills, the handler knows from all their training how the dog responds in this scenario (i.e. train for what you intend to work in), and the team moves about the search area in a way that the combination of their skills is more than the sum of their talents. The handler is relaxed and the dog is focused or intent on the job at hand. The handler’s job at this point is observation and area management. The handler feels no need to “search for the dog.”
4) I don’t usually discuss this combination, but they are out there in SAR. Neither dog nor Handler (and I hesitate to say handler, owner is better) have a clue as to why they are out there and what to do. The handler just knows “fluffy” can find his/her kids, their socks, the cat, it’s chew bone, squirrels, etc. ad nausea and decides this is a sign from the “god(s) of their choice” that the dog needs to be in SAR and they want to help. In a search team you are in a quandary as the person wants to do good and perhaps you can convince them that they’d be a better asset being a flanker, handling a radio at base, being a P.R. person, anything but a dog team. At seminars, if you are in the position of being an instructor, well they paid for instruction and one has to do one’s best. I’ve been to seminars where the instructor just chews someone up and spits them out. The only thing served by this is the instructor gets her/his ego stroked and an enemy is created. When I’m in this position, I still strive to teach good skills and to let the “customer” observe decent dog teams in hopes they’ll figure out this is not for them. If asked straight out, I always answer truthfully and I warn people of this ahead of time. With someone with the right attitude, I’ll suggest this dog be their dog to learn their handling skills on with the idea that once their handling skills improve that they could then go look for a better dog suited for the job they want it to perform. The very worst case scenario of this combination is such dog teams get together and form their own team, declaring themselves head trainers. Just because someone isn’t a good dog handler doesn’t mean they aren’t good at public relations and marketing. These types of teams often are great at spin and the end result is law enforcement often decides all SAR teams are full of hooey and to never call them again.
Sooooo, that took much longer than I anticipated.
Timing:
For handlers we have up to seven seconds to mark a behavior as positive or negative to create an association for the dog. That’s UP TO Seven seconds. Faster is always better and with some dogs you have a much shorter window. We also run the risk of creating an association completely off-base from what we expected.
Example:
We’ve created an imprinting station for “Snuffles”. We have three concrete cinder blocks out in a field with two blanks and one LOADED with our scent source of choice. We ask Snuffles to walk along the blocks. If Snuffles sniffs in the blanks then we ignore it. If Snuffles sniffs over the desired scent, we reward or mark the behavior. Sooooo, Snuffles comes along, puts his nose on the scent source….handler watches this with joy, ponders (I should get Snuffles ball out of my pocket), (I should tell Snuffles he’s a good boy), ETC. Synapses fire slowly. 3-4 seconds later action begins and Snuffles is rewarded. MEANWHILE, Snuffles discovers there was also squirrel scat in the grass right next to the “loaded cinder block” and sniffs that. The REWARD appears. Snuffles concludes, “The human must want me to find squirrel poo………..okie dokie, squirrel poo it is…cool ball…squeak…dance …joy joy”
Handler repeats this exercise with the same timing ten times. A wonder of a Squirrel Poo Finder is created. Handler hides same scent source near tree. Dog targets three feet away from scent source……on the invisible squirrel poo, he’s really happy. Dog comes to realize that the handler wants both squirrel poo and the other stinky dead stuff at the same time, a quandary arises for the poor dog….it just doesn’t know how to please the handler…… This all occurred because our timing sucked. We had the right idea, but our performance was lacking. This weekend a handler did a common thing and hid the ball behind her back. The dog knew where it was and thought she wanted to play keep away. Unless you subscribe to the “poof reward system”, the dog knows you have its reward. Part of the working relationship is you have the paycheck, they perform the desired act, you pay them …you pay them quickly and with much hooplah.
Consistency:
Dog training is really linguistics and canine social skills, nothing more and nothing less. The bulk of the human race expects the dog to mind read and determine what they as owners want. Dog trainers come to realize that life is so much better if we develop a CONSISTENT communication system. This means you establish black-and-white rules with your dog and you stick with those rules. Dogs love black-and-white rules. Make bad rules and, just like small kids, teenagers, and engineers, they will figure out how to get around them. Don’t live by your own rules and they will make their own. Rarely are these rules the same as what you want.
Rules apply both to searching and to daily life. If you let your dog up on your couch SOMETIMES, it will constantly be trying to define when those times are. The dog doesn’t know you have whims, the day sucked, and you want a cuddle partner…but, the rest of the time the couch is OFF-LIMITS.
RULE: The dog only gets YOUR CHOSEN reward for making finds WHEN IT MAKES FINDS. You want to go play ball with your doggie because it’s such a pleasant day? Go throw some scent sources out in the area and give the dog a valid reason to get the ball. I dread the phrase, “What harm can it do to play a little game of ball with my dog on it’s day off?” Read “Getting the Milk for free”.
On the flip-side to this, let’s say you leave scent sources out in your yard. Normally, Snuffles stays in the back yard and you let him out. Snuffles finds your sources and does the required alert/indication/targeting. YOU ARE OBLIGATED to pay Snuffles. Snuffles doesn’t know that you are taking a day off. You’ve trained him that every time he smells the scent that he’s to tell you about it……pay him and be overjoyed that you didn’t have to go through whatever ritual you feel is necessary to get him excited about the job for him to perform. My dogs….I open the door of my vehicle and say, “let’s work.” That’s my ritual. If they get distracted by an animal scent, I buzz them and say, “let’s work.” If the dog requires me to get them all pumped up before they go work scent, then the dog isn’t working for scent, it’s working for me. I want the dog that couldn’t give a rat’s behind about me, but it loves the scent and it loves my reward system. That I’m consistent and I always pay off when they perform….well, they like me as a great boss. If I needed a dog to wuv me, I’d look for a pet. I need a working dog. My dogs want to go with me because they know I’m the Game Master, all good things come from me and I always follow “the rules”.
Secondly, communicate with the dog on its level. We are the more intelligent species after all (most of us anyway). Learn canine communication and apply it ….consistently. Usually with the female humans, I have a hard time getting them to correct their dogs verbally in low tones. Usually with the male humans, I have to threaten to grab their kohonees or goose them to get them to reward their dog in a higher tone. I worked recently with a very nice lady from Great Britain, very reserved in her speech patterns. Her dog raced away from her. She called it’s name in a very matter of fact tone three times, “Snuffles……SNUFFles…..SNUFFLES…..”. The dog turned once and looked at her…..the dog knows its name….then it raced off to investigate the other dog, appearing to blow her off when really she hadn’t asked anything of him. Finally, in a high pitched tone, she voices some recall command. The dog responded immediately to her and raced back to her. Me, I go high pitch when the dog does a good thing, but my point is she used a command and she did so in an inviting vocal tone. The dog, a lab puppy, decided she was suddenly more inviting than the other dog it was visiting with. RULE: My dogs always get rewarded for responding to a recall and never punished.
To do otherwise invites the dog that runs as hard as they can in the opposite direction when we yell, “COME!” (The implication being the human one of “Get your behind over here as you are in big trouble!” Human kids can rationalize that if they don’t then the outcome is going to be worse if “….IF I HAVE TO COME GET YOU….it will be so so very bad!” Dogs….they don’t make this association….If you force your dog to perform a recall so you can punish it, the dog quickly learns to go the other way. I know my dogs will perform a solid recall. I have to hope I don’t ask them to do this when they are in scent as then I put them in conflict.
REWARD Systems:
Working dogs do what we ask of them for a paycheck. The paycheck has to be (in their eyes) better than the scent source. If the dog comes with a reward it obsesses on, such as a ball, life is easy. Not all dogs have high ball drives and the handler/trainer has to determine what the dog will want more than the scent source itself. This is important as (especially in HRD) otherwise the dog may decide to self-reward with the scent source itself instead of what you deem it should have. If you don’t reward fast enough, the dog may decide to self-reward with the scent source itself. The handler has to build an obsession in the dog for that reward.
The handler has to be able to deliver that reward in a timely manner(see timing above). This tends to be one of the reasons I don’t like food reward systems for HRD as it tends to force the handler to stay in close proximity to the dog when it’s working. If the clicker is used properly, it basically means food is coming. Some handlers can use verbal praise instead with the promise that food is coming. A toy/ball allows the handler to throw the reward to the dog where ever it is and where ever the source is. If the handler can’t throw the reward 30, 40, 50, or more feet to the dog, this can limit its effectiveness. I like to use food only as a secondary reinforcement for the ball as it lets me trade for the ball back from the dog without commanding it to give up its paycheck. Some dogs like to play tug with the reward before they release it. I consider this as good as trading the toy for food as they are getting the game in trade. It’s a business relationship between you and the dog. Dogs like the hard sell with their reward, so the hooplah is a necessary evil that the handler must submit to for the work their dog performs. If you can’t act the total idiot for your creature with the mentality of a 4-8 y/o child, the reward system will lose its luster. When I put my dog up into its crate, kennel, or the vehicle after a reward, it’s very likely that I’ll walk away playing with their reward and acting like it’s the best thing since a Robin Williams comedy sketch. The result is the dog is ballistic as I’m walking away, wanting the reward even more for next time.
Sorry for the disorder, but life is very full right now. I set this aside for a few days to make sure I didn’t offend any one by accident. If you see yourself in any of the descriptions, it’s most likely because we all have our dog training habits we need to improve on. We can only hope to get to the point where we are the decent handler with the great dog or (as I view my own training) trying to decrease how much I handicap my dog’s work.
Regards,
Jim