Post by oksaradt on Oct 26, 2009 10:31:10 GMT -5
This time Murphy gets to be the source of a good lesson we should all keep in mind as we work our dogs. This last Saturday I handed a cavity wipe from a recent death to a problem setter to be used for Murphy's blind. I did this knowing that Murphy's weakest area is blood. I'm not too concerned with this limitation as most calls for HRD dogs come weeks, months, years, decades after the death and blood just isn't a concern. I'd much rather have a dog tuned to the subtle, minute scent sources than the loud source that an area search dog should (hopefully) find much quicker than an HRD dog. But, there are times when we might be called upon to perform such duties regardless of what's the best dog team for the job.
The morning was cold, so a frozen cavity wipe isn't a big deal. The problem setter was given a general area with the instruction that she'd tell me my dog's area when we were to work it. This is a semi-blind as I know there's only one source out there and what it is. The problem setter's dog is learning to do elevated, so with that in mind the source was to be at nose high to start the other dog off easily. The source was placed in a a small sumac tree in full sun next to dense woods with shade to the west, a road of gravel, dirt, and grass some 120 feet wide to the east bordered by more dense woods. There was a slope up from the road to the woods on either side. At ground level there was no perceptile wind. After the fact, it was noticed that there was approximately a 1 mph wind from west to east at the tops of the trees some 40-50 feet up. Total search area was not big, maybe 1.5 football fields long and 50 yards wide, or about 1.5 acres.
What the scent did in this situation. 1)Blood components diffuse very fast and spread far. 2) In full sun, air tends to rise and pulls the scent with it. 3) upper air currents can push scent along that should drop as it reaches colder air.
So, in this situation, there was very little scent at nose high or below for the dogs to find near the source. With the air warmer in the sun than in the adjacent west woods, very little scent moved into those woods even though they were closer. There was a scent void on the ground until the east woods were reached and scent could drop.
Murphy got into scent in shaded region on the east side in an area approximately 80 feet north-to-south and 50 feet west-to-east. Sun bordered that area with breaks in the trees explaining the scent trap. Murphy exhibited scent behavior and told me twice that he had scent, but when asked to target would go back to searching. As a handler, I knew this meant he had scent with no source. The problem setter was instructed to give me no help unless I asked for it. As this was training and I didn't want to push my dog to commit to scent with no source, I finally stated/asked, "It's across the road to the west, in the sun, right?" The problem setter nodded. I should note that I've dealt with problems like this in the past, but normally some surface wind helps both handler and dog figure out what's going on. Only at this point did I start looking up and notice just barely perceptible leaf movement on the tops of the trees. If there had been no leaves on the trees, I probably wouldn't have had that to help me.
I pulled Murphy out of scent and asked him to go back to the west where we had been and I was (at the time) satisfied that there wasn't anything there. I don't dictate where my dog searches as I feel this suggests I know scent better than the dog. I do dictate areas to work. At this point, I was able to narrow the search area to a similar north-to-south area and have Murphy re-work the west tree line where he was able to locate the source. I visually located it by following his nose when we got a lucky puff of air movement and it pulled his head toward the source. (We handlers just feel so much better when we can get a visual confirmation. It should be considered a luxury rather than routine.)
I felt I should share my torture with this problem as it wasn't intentionally set up to be difficult. When the problem setter put it out, the source was in shade, but the darn sun just keeps moving. Every dog handler should always be aware of their dog's weaknesses and strive to work through them, being honest with others as to what needs to be achieved with problems. Going to training with the intention that your dog is going to impress all doesn't make you or your dog better at searching. Yea, it strokes your ego and it might fool the novices, but the victims or their families are the ones that pay the price.
This sort of problem is exactly what a blind problem should be. The handler and the experienced dog should be given challenges that force them to work together to solve the scent problem, it should take longer than the typical 10 minutes in-and-out problem, and sometimes the handler will have to ask for help so as not to screw up their dog. There's no shame in this at training. There's no shame at a real search if you observe scent behavior with your dog that you don't understand and ask for another dog team (if one is available) to work the area with no prior knowledge of what you saw. Search work is not about competition, it is about improving ours and our dog's skill levels so the victim(s) can be found and pain resolved.
Many of the dog trainers out there now get caught up in their way is the only way of training dogs. Some of them do it because of monetary gain, some do it for ego, some do it out of fear that otherwise they might have been doing it wrong all this time (yea, some dog trainers are religious in their convictions, going on faith rather than successes and failures.....in HRD often times we never learn of our failures as the victims just go unfound.).
Most of my life I've learned so much more from failures than successes and the best place to fail is at training rather than on a real search.
Hope this helps someone,
Jim
The morning was cold, so a frozen cavity wipe isn't a big deal. The problem setter was given a general area with the instruction that she'd tell me my dog's area when we were to work it. This is a semi-blind as I know there's only one source out there and what it is. The problem setter's dog is learning to do elevated, so with that in mind the source was to be at nose high to start the other dog off easily. The source was placed in a a small sumac tree in full sun next to dense woods with shade to the west, a road of gravel, dirt, and grass some 120 feet wide to the east bordered by more dense woods. There was a slope up from the road to the woods on either side. At ground level there was no perceptile wind. After the fact, it was noticed that there was approximately a 1 mph wind from west to east at the tops of the trees some 40-50 feet up. Total search area was not big, maybe 1.5 football fields long and 50 yards wide, or about 1.5 acres.
What the scent did in this situation. 1)Blood components diffuse very fast and spread far. 2) In full sun, air tends to rise and pulls the scent with it. 3) upper air currents can push scent along that should drop as it reaches colder air.
So, in this situation, there was very little scent at nose high or below for the dogs to find near the source. With the air warmer in the sun than in the adjacent west woods, very little scent moved into those woods even though they were closer. There was a scent void on the ground until the east woods were reached and scent could drop.
Murphy got into scent in shaded region on the east side in an area approximately 80 feet north-to-south and 50 feet west-to-east. Sun bordered that area with breaks in the trees explaining the scent trap. Murphy exhibited scent behavior and told me twice that he had scent, but when asked to target would go back to searching. As a handler, I knew this meant he had scent with no source. The problem setter was instructed to give me no help unless I asked for it. As this was training and I didn't want to push my dog to commit to scent with no source, I finally stated/asked, "It's across the road to the west, in the sun, right?" The problem setter nodded. I should note that I've dealt with problems like this in the past, but normally some surface wind helps both handler and dog figure out what's going on. Only at this point did I start looking up and notice just barely perceptible leaf movement on the tops of the trees. If there had been no leaves on the trees, I probably wouldn't have had that to help me.
I pulled Murphy out of scent and asked him to go back to the west where we had been and I was (at the time) satisfied that there wasn't anything there. I don't dictate where my dog searches as I feel this suggests I know scent better than the dog. I do dictate areas to work. At this point, I was able to narrow the search area to a similar north-to-south area and have Murphy re-work the west tree line where he was able to locate the source. I visually located it by following his nose when we got a lucky puff of air movement and it pulled his head toward the source. (We handlers just feel so much better when we can get a visual confirmation. It should be considered a luxury rather than routine.)
I felt I should share my torture with this problem as it wasn't intentionally set up to be difficult. When the problem setter put it out, the source was in shade, but the darn sun just keeps moving. Every dog handler should always be aware of their dog's weaknesses and strive to work through them, being honest with others as to what needs to be achieved with problems. Going to training with the intention that your dog is going to impress all doesn't make you or your dog better at searching. Yea, it strokes your ego and it might fool the novices, but the victims or their families are the ones that pay the price.
This sort of problem is exactly what a blind problem should be. The handler and the experienced dog should be given challenges that force them to work together to solve the scent problem, it should take longer than the typical 10 minutes in-and-out problem, and sometimes the handler will have to ask for help so as not to screw up their dog. There's no shame in this at training. There's no shame at a real search if you observe scent behavior with your dog that you don't understand and ask for another dog team (if one is available) to work the area with no prior knowledge of what you saw. Search work is not about competition, it is about improving ours and our dog's skill levels so the victim(s) can be found and pain resolved.
Many of the dog trainers out there now get caught up in their way is the only way of training dogs. Some of them do it because of monetary gain, some do it for ego, some do it out of fear that otherwise they might have been doing it wrong all this time (yea, some dog trainers are religious in their convictions, going on faith rather than successes and failures.....in HRD often times we never learn of our failures as the victims just go unfound.).
Most of my life I've learned so much more from failures than successes and the best place to fail is at training rather than on a real search.
Hope this helps someone,
Jim
