training the alert

[rthonor]

I am sure this has been covered before, and I probably have it saved in my files but this is specific to my female mal who is 14 months old.

Yesterday, we had sources set up for us in an 1/2 acre area or larger and there were 5 sources. I knew where they were.

I saw progress. In my opinion (and I am very critical of myself) I thought she did well. Perfect, no, but I thought I saw some of our training pay off.

I have tried to approach her training differently- Like I am not wanting a search ready dog TODAY. I wanted to have a sequential order of training, with fun strongly embedded in the training. I have tried to the best of my knowledge to follow some of my readings on this board. I have used teeth and the one bone that I have more than anything as sources at home trianing. I have tried really hard to make her accurate- not like my ACD that alerts in the scent poole. Thats why I have rewarded when her NOSE touches it. So, she does not have what you would call an solid , obvious alert. However, it is obvious when she finds it- she puts her paw on it and looks at me. Now, I have tried to be very quick in my reward when she does this. And I have tried to make it all very fun. Remember, she is my very smart dog, that does not play with the toy endlessly. She finds me slightly boring, ( i have tried to correct this). The tug thing does work- she likes the interaction with me more than anything. Anyway;

I got strongly critiqued by my group that her alert was not better. They also said I was cueing her, not to find it- she can do that, but when she looked at me , I said good girl, and then they felt like she was confident but only becaused I cued her. I considered her looking at me as saying- here it is, come see. But I am a rookie..... so maybe I am wrong.

So, I am going to take this as my cue that she is ready to solidify the alert- they sugested sit. She always naturally put her foot on it......but maybe that is not good enough. Your thoughts?

[oksaradt]

Make sure you read the thread "SAR Martial Arts".

You have the target first which is how I've trained the past two dogs. The paw on the source needs to become associated with a command of "touch" or "show me" or something similar. This is an obvious act and should be good in court if this dog only does a touch on HRs.
Now, you will need a mechanism labeled the alert or indication such that if your dog does this in underbrush on a find and you can't see it that the dog is able to draw your attention to the find.
The "alert" can be any recognizable act that can be notice by you from a distance. Any alert has advantages and disadvantages. The bark is prone to barking in scent pool if the dog handler isn't every vigilant not to accept it, but only with a precise tartet. The Sit and Down both appear to be the favorite of the courts yet many handlers don't train it to be bombproof where the dog will sit or down in water, on debris piles, on slopes, etc. And, nothing says a dog won't sit or down in pool as well, but they don't like to bring that up. With my Tempe with her down alert, she had to down in water up to her nose when she was in a down. Several times she rolled down a slope as she tried to find someway to down for me with the source between her paws. If we worked a cemetery with 100's of graves, her down became a play bow and I accpeted it as getting up and down over and over again is quite tiring.


You should have a alert mechanism to work along side your target. MOST SAR teams only do the alert without a target as most of them started out with a whole person and the concept of having the dog target the live victim seems ludicrous. When one is trying to find a single tooth, as both Thorpe and Murphy get to do today many times to help me clean up my subsurface field, a target is essential. When we worked together in Texas, I got the impression that you expect to do a lot of LE work. A target is essential for them most of all......except for the rabid archeologist or anthropologist that's begging you and your dog to locate those very old remains.

That this dog is where it's at is quite nice. Pick your alert well as the stories of handlers that can't settle on an alert are the stories of nightmares. Once a dog is taught one alert, it can use it as it chooses. I know one handler that had to list three acceptable alerts on her dog every time she certified because so many experts told her their alert was the best. That at five weeks of age that same dog playbowed in front of human remains and I told the handler, you have your alert right there.....that was forgotten for four years until the handler had to settle for a down alert, a bark, a touch, and a tug on the handler's belt where a bringsel once had been.....it was a nightmare for both dog and handler.

If you are going to stay with this SAR group, then you'll have to decide the weight of their rules on what you do. SAR groups make rules often time as a result of reactionary measures after they failed previously. New members rarely get to know the reason behind the rules even if they ask as sometimes it's embarrassing.

MY rule (as you've gotten to endure) is I give you flags. If you and your dog flag the source to within our agreed limitations then I really don't care how you got there. As you got to experience, you're never really sure if a source is a source and have to go by the dog.

So, what you are creating with your canine partner is a well-oiled scent machine that should produce a reliable alert AT THE SOURCE and have a reliable targeting mechanism AT THE SOURCE.

*cough* While this is guaranteed to piss off a lot of SAR group trainers, you can always ask they deomonstrate their mechanisms on a blind you set up with a source that they can't see. Let them pick out the source....don't really care. Place it fairly where the dog can't quite get to it and the handler can't see it....lots of ways. Have them demonstrate what they expect of you and your dog. IF they can do that then you have your minimum criteria that you have to meet.....minimum.

That being said, the alert should be backchained into the find response. This means that you train the alert separately away from scent until it is bombproof. At that time, you can begin training the alert with a scent stimulus with the dog still doing it's touch and you CUEing the alert. This is a recognizable step in the dog's training with the scent source-cued alert as the final result. If I'm working with another dog team, I wait so long for the dog to alert on it's own when it's made the find. If it doesn't, I want the alert before the dog leaves, so I'll tell the handler to cue the alert. It's with the anticipation that with lots of repitions that the dog anticipates the cue and does it without it. It's a transitory phase that's usually dependent on how often the handler works the dog.....repeat....repeat....repeat.....ad nauseum.



It may be true that you are cueing your dog with a look. My first dog was like this such that I developed a routine of never looking directly at her when she was working. Afterwards....with subsequent dogs, I've made it routine to meet eyes with my dogs at various times through out the search so that it's not a cue.

That being said, I worked Murphy yesterday on a problem in the woods after someone else worked it. It was a strong source, a frozen placenta placed out about three hours earlier, a little blood but still mostly frozen. I sent Murphy into the deep stuff and jogged along on an easy path parallel to him such that I could keep him just barely in my sight. He picked up scent about 50 feet away in a wash and followed it into the source. As soon as I knew he was on scent I hid behind a tree......just to see what he'd do. As the operator of my well-oiled scent machine I have to know what the dog will do without me there. He checked out the scent source, did a paw on the crate, looked up and around for me, couldn't see me. He wagged his tail and let out a resounding bark. I literally jumped back out onto the trail (not easy with my right arm sticking a foot out from my side in a torture device called a sling) and excitedly spoke, "Got Something?!" He wagged again and barked, then slapped the crate once with his paw again. I ooo'd and awed as I approached and asked him to show me. He did a touch on the crate one more time and I rewarded with kong flying and lots of hooting.

I train my "well-oiled scent machine" this way because it's not uncommon for us to search a field of solid six-foot tall ragweed for bones that might have appeared there months before. He could be right next to me and I wouldn't know he had a find without that alert. It's why I like a bark (even though those watching the courts say this is a no-no and that a touch is a no-no as if trained improperly it becomes a dig (which is a no-no)).

Right now, the puppy Thorpe has been known to dig when he's guessing in scent pool. I watch this with trepidation YET when he does find the source then the paw becomes a confident smooth touch right over the source. Dogs guess if the handler lets them and many handlers in a hurry to get that SAR martial art do allow their dogs to guess WHICH causes alerts and targets away from the source.......and makes us all look bad.


So, sorry, I can't tell you what you must do. I long ago learned that to do so is to create a failure that's blamed on me. I can tell you what I do and why. It's up to you to choose. Choose well.

As for your group critiquing you for the alert not begin better, simply tell them that you are working on the target first and the alert second. Ask them how their targets are coming. Don't be snide. Don't be sarcastic. You asked to join them (I assume) for certain benefits to your skills. Good HRD handlers don't actually need to be in a SAR group as word gets around to LE by the officers they work with. BAD SAR teams don't get asked back. If all L.E. has to draw from is So-so SAR teams then rarely do dogs get used at all, but lots of groups train with high hopes. It's not an easy decision.

Take criticism objectivley and examine it in the spirit its given. A lot of times criticism is given because you don't work the way they do. You are out of their comfort zone. If you stick by your way then expect to repeatedly prove your methods and your dog. I can tell you that this ends up making you a better dog handler.

Above all, ask your customers/clients what they need you and your dog to be. That's what is important. That means the L.E. you work with and/or cemeteries/anthropologists/archeologists. They are who you serve. If the SAR team is honest, even if they don't like your methods but realize you and your dog are the most accurate then they will deploy you. For my first years of HRD with a SAR team, I got assigned the crappiest areas because they knew my dog and I would go there without complaint and do the best job possible. It was good training for later on because ner-do-wells like to dump bodies in places they believe nobody wants to go or will think of looking.

Hope this helps. Yea, you need an alert with a target. In my mind the dog is incomplete without both. I've watched handlers that placed a flag simply because their dog's nose dipped over an area on the ground. This is the handler that says they can read their dog.
I can read my dog in knowing when it's in scent. I want EVERYONE to be able to read my dog that it has a find and where it is. I'm flattered most when my L.E. tells me, "heck, we'll give you $20,000 for that dog right now. We don't need you to work it." I just smile at the compliment and say the dog isn't for sale. That's where you have to get with your dog.


Jim

[rthonor]

This is good information and I will work on an actual alert to go with the target. I do not think i CUE ed her, though I know we all do things without realizing it.......they said and I agree, was that after she touched it with nose and then her paw, she looked to me for confidence and i would tell her good and they considered that cueing as I did not wait for her to alert. In my opinion, I thought a good girl was warrented because she did do as trained to do.....and since I am mostly her maid , she rarely bothers to look at me while working . I think she knows I am stupid:) so why would she look to me (she is a fairly arrogant dog). anyway, food for thought and on to the next level. Appeciate your insight and advice.

Addtionally, I took her to the old cemetary today. I have to say, I was very happy, though I know this might have been some type of fluke.

First, I walked her off lead by a lake. She just did dog stuff and kind of played. Then I took her to the cemetary. It is fenced, with about 50 graves. I did not give her a command. I just wanted to watch her. If no interest, so be it. However, she did begin to show interest. I was really just ecstatic about that!! The cemetary is on a hill, and the back part dipped down some. She ran many times to that corner, which is where the oldest graves are. I wondered if the scent was pulled toward that sloping corner. I encouraged her to leave the corner (some graves were on the outside on the slope of the hill) and walked her around the other newer graves. She went back to that corner. And then she began pacing over 3 of the oldest graves smelling the head and footstone. so again, I would left feeling happy;) and then went to the grave closest to the corner and put her foot on the footstone. Which at this point and time, is her alert. So, maybe that was a 1 in a million coincidence or maybe she smelled something, but it completely made my day.

Does that sound logical, that she could have smelled something? What next? rt

[rthonor]

And yes, I plan to do most of my work for Le.

What are your dogs' alert?

[oksaradt]

Since you don't have an alert on the dog yet, you were rewarding her for what you had trained her to do rather than cueing. That being said, part of training the alert is cueing it till it's solid and there's nothing wrong with that.
Cueing is an issue if someone does it in testing, on a blind, on a real search, etc. and they don't know they do it. I had to fail an area search dog team once on their level of doing the find, recall, and alert. The handler turned to me as I said, "nice, but I hafta to fail you." She exclaims, "Why?" The other evaluator and I exchanged glances and I said, "since you failed this time, let's do another find and I'll demonstrate it for you." She agreed. She sent her dog again. AS the dog was running back to her after the find, I reached around her and held her hands to her side. Her dog came up and looked at her expectantly. Her right hand kept jerking against my hand and I asked her, "do you notice what your right hand is doing? I'm going to let go now." I did and her hand came up a few inches and started making a biting motion with the thumb and fingers. Her dog immediately barked ON CUE. She truly didn't know she was doing the signal. We fixed it within two weeks and they moved on.

I've had an HRD dog team fail because I knew the handler cued her dog to sit with a very slight shuffle of her feet Just like I do when teaching the sit at the stop of a heel. I simply requested she work her dog no closer than ten feet from her. We set out an extremely strong source to find. The dog walked all around it, looking up at the handler expectantly. The handler was very ego driven and was embarrassed that her dog wasn't sitting at the source. She hated to ask for advice but finally yelled, "what's wrong with my dog?" I told her, face your dog with your feet together and imagine it's only a foot in front of you. She did, she shuffled, the dog sat at the source. The problem was she'd gotten in a hurry to pass and had not taken the time to phase the training cue out of the picture and enforce that the scent source is the cue to sit alert.

Did your dog do anything different after you verbally praised her that they would consider an alert? If not then they are simply training with their limited experience and throwing out what has been thrown at them. It happens to all of us. It's the downside of inexperience training inexperience, but we have to depend on someone else watching us to help us spot the unconcious cueing that will burn us on a real search.

AGain, tell them to set you up a blind where you don't know where the source is and it's not visible to you, only found by scent by the dog. If your dog is precise then cueing will botch the results as cueing depends on you knowing where the scent source is; Otherwise, it will burn you.
When dog teams watch each other work a problem they often key in on the first find assuming it's correct and then the cueing will begin. It's why if I'm workign a search for L.E. with other dog teams and I'm asked to work my dog to confirm or deny other dog teams that I do not want to know their results.

My alert on Murphy is the one the courtroom experts advise against using, the bark. A recent court case had the dog's find thrown out because it barks at other things than HRs. All dogs bark at other things. All dogs sit when tired. All dogs down when tired. Without the target, the judge is right. If my dog barks in scent, my response to it is "show me". If the dog only has scent but no source then it goes back to work. I know I have scent, but we haven't found the source yet. If my dog touches something with it's paw then I have a find. At that point I take the dog out and approach the same area from another direction to see if the dog's results are identical. The dog has to sell me that it has a find.
THEN, L.E. SHOULD go in with their forensic people and find the remains my dog pointed to. If they can't find anything, then there is nothing to take to court. Trouble erupts when L.E. or a D.A. goes solely on the dog's response, suggesting the dog can find so minute trace evidence that the lab guys can't. If that's true then we have no case anyway. This is also the same reaons why HRD dogs should not be used for a search warrant cause. Let's say they have your run your dog around a house and your dog gets all excited at the foundation vent. It doesn't alert, but gets really excited. Someone could have cut their hand on the wood floor. A plumber might have cut his hand doing repairs. Human Remains happen as a natural part of normal life., they are not a valid reason for a search warrant.
L.E. gets a tip that someone was bried under the house and the judge likes their confidential informants tip, then a search warrant can be obtained and your dog can work under the house to tell them where to dig IF there's anything to find. If your dog barks all under the house, but doesn't target then you don't have useful information that L.E. can use.....; Thus, you need both the alert and the target.

The puppy is spposed to bark. He can bark on cue off-line just great. Right now when he's in scent then he gets exc ited and has to think about the bark often producing a chuff. That's ok it will come with time. He's only 10 months of age.
If you want to make your SAR team happy, a sit or a down will probably be more acceptable to them.

Remember on the cemetery that I warned you that the headstones and footstones will soak up scent over the years. The dog will be drawn to them at first. If you want to work on marked graves, then you have to teach them to ignore the stones and search the ground for the source of the scent. Bodies can be moved and the stones can stay, still smelling of human remains years afterwards.
Low points will present more scent normally. Scent will roll down hill unless caused to rise by sunlight or thermal activity.



Jim

[rthonor]

That is great informantion. I will have to digest that. I am sure, because we all do some unknown things while training, that I have cued her and my other dogs at some point with out even knowing it. I know that I do cueing in obedience- sometimes delibertly - like the foot shuffle girl above to help them get the idea and then fade the cue
.
HOwever, in the case above, she did as you pointed out- looked at me after she found it. I rewarded. I will start to build in a more obvious alert- she does like to play bow and that might be what I stick with. She does that already too.

Also, I reread the SAR Martial Arts post. I see them and probably me in that....I really should just stay in my confort zone of the lone wolf.

As far as the cemetary, I do remember you saying that about the head and foot stone, now. I really forgot all that you had told me to look for once in the cemetary other than act as if it was a negative ......I sort of thought I would get nothing- I mean, thats an odd concept that they can smell things that old .....but in spite of that, I felt overwhelmed that my girl can smell (even if it was in the footstone) because that was WOW!!!! Truthfully, chills when down my arms when she did that.

I will have to reread what you typed to me about it and then go back out. Thanks for the indepth post. rt