<I notice that you have chosen a surface scratch or dig as an alert. Also, as I recall, you chose this because it is something that came natural to Murphy. I had planned on a "down stay" as an alert, and was curious how you opted for the scratch, which seems a more active alert. Is there any advantage to one over the other, in practice?>
+ One of the most important lessons I learned with Dax is that you (as the trainer) need to determine what your dog’s “natural indication” is. This is the means the dog chooses to convey to you that it has a find.
With Tempe, this was a down that she chose. Dax’s natural indication is a touch, not a dig, not a scratch. A dig indication develops if the handler fails to recognize the touch and the dog becomes frustrated into developing a more demonstrative dig.
Most beginning handlers (and some experienced handlers) try to force their chosen indication upon the dog. The debate still continues on passive indication (sit or down) versus active (bark, dig, touch) as to the pro’s and con’s.
Why is the “natural indication” important? Because the dog will revert to this indication in times of novel situations and/or stress. So, with a bark indication (which does tire a dog out in certain situations) if it’s hot, dry, etc. the dog may find it difficult to bark after finding 40-plus, 100-plus graves. The handler has to be able to recognize that the dog is trying to convey the same information with it’s foundation or natural indication, whatever that may be.
From experience, I’ve chosen to build on the natural indication as that comes easiest to the dog and the dog is most comfortable conveying information this way.
All indications have pro’s and con’s. With Tempe’s down (very solid), I had to train her through downing at awkward elevations, in water, on debris, …basically in crappy situations. Many dog handlers that have down indications will tell you their dog just won’t down in water or on …say broken glass on a rubble pile…(smart dog)… The handler has to decide what will work best for their dog. There is no right or wrong answer. Believe me, I went through a gamut of the experts opinions on varying indications. Each expert basically came down to what worked for them and their dog best when the rubber hit the road.
So, with Murphy, his natural indication is a touch, very gentle. Yes, if I ignore it, he will become destructive and that’s ON ME. That’s up to me to listen and pay attention to my dog. With Murphy, I’ve extended the touch into a frustration bark for ease of searching. WHY? Because I often have to send my dogs into heavy underbrush where I don’t get to see them. With Tempe, I often had to crawl down under the underbrush and watch to see if she downed. With Tempe, I had to always know where she was because she would stay with the scent source until I found her downed next to it…that’s the way I train…commitment. With Dax and Murphy, if I send them into the underbrush, I will get a bark because they both want me involved in the hunt. It’s a basically, “get your ass over here. I have a find and I want my reward.”
If all you work are cemeteries, a down will be great as you’ll rarely be away from your dog. But, if your dog doesn’t like to down and you’re working in a downpour, the dog may choose to avoid downing in a water puddle. The result is you miss a find. Same thing with a sit. EVERY indication has challenges.
How do I determine the natural indication?
At the same time I’m doing imprinting, I also initiate obedience at separate occasions. Now, this is fun-time obedience where I’m basically teaching what the words mean rather than expecting lightning maneuvers. You can easily do the treat leads into sits, downs, stands, etc. With Tempe, we had been imprinting on scent for about 3 weeks. The day before we’d been doing play-bow into downs. I took her out to run some cinder blocks with 1 scent source in five blocks. Tempe walked along the blocks, stopped at the block with scent, and went into a down all on her own. To my credit my reward timing was spot on and her indication was locked for her lifetime. There was no big secret in how I got what many people described as a very demonstrative indication. I let the dog choose.
If you choose an indication up front without consulting with your dog, chances are you will go through a progression of indications. I know many handlers who went through a progression of indications until they settled on one the dog was solid on. The downside of this is that for the rest of the dog’s career that the handler must now decide if the dog gives ANY of those other indications whether it is trying to communicate a find or not. If you go through this gamut, it will indeed be a learning situation for you AND many handlers just have to suffer through it before they learn to let the dog help determine what the best indication is for it.
The first time Dax ever came into contact with HRs, she did a touch. I chose to ignore this at the time and dictate what I wanted. To this day, 10 years later, if I’m working water with Dax, she will do a touch on the target. I take it. I’ve learned how precise she is on water with it. Many handlers that progress from land to water work suddenly observe their dog acts differently on water……it’s indication changes….new environment, the dog uses it’s naturally indication. I simply chose to have one indication all the time by listening to what the dog said was easiest for it.
And yea, I cracked up routinely when I worked Tempe in water and she would down on shoreline until only her eyes and nose were poking up from the water. I think you’ll find this is not the norm with the down indication in water work.
Yea yea, long answer. This is a crucial part of your working relationship with your dog.
One final point. The more your dog does repetitive work, the more they figure out ways to make their job easier. When Dax works a cemetery of 100, 200, or more graves we get into a rhythm. After so many barks and touches, she may just get into a stand. If I choose to ignore it or I missed it, she'll look exasperated and do the "tap dance" I expect, but everyone watching her knows she has a find. That's why Dax is so much fun to work. She has a find, I don't have to translate. EVERYONE knows she has a find. She won't leave the spot till I flag it. To knock out a large cemetery, I'll have flags in my hand ready and my focus is entirely on her. I rarely see the patterns forming till I choose she needs a reward break or I need more flags. Also, by this point your eventually realize you have to have complete confidence in your dog's abilities or YOU will bog down the process convincing yourself the dog knows its job. This is why a very strong foundation is crucial.
Tempe was the same way with her downs, but after lots of finds the downs became playbows so that she wasn't getting up and down over and over again. I was cool with that.
Murphy will develop his own style and I'll encourage that because it has to be fun for him regardless of the conditions.+
<Logs: any disadvantage to keeping an e log versus paper? I know that is a rather silly question, but had to ask. I have terrible writing.>
+I did paper for years. I have boxes of logs. About three years ago I went to a computerized continually yearly training log for each year. I find it’s easier to search back through if I want to see what I’ve done in the past. For historic work, it’s not as big a deal for you. Current expert advice is to keep your log short and to the point. As my log entriess often get sent out to people I’m helping, they can become verbose to teach. If I’m not going to use a training problem as a teaching example, I write down my own weather observations, environment, time worked, and issues (if any) that the dog and I need to work on (and I better have future entries that address these issues or defense attorneys will eat me up with my own words). I often paste the closest weather underground weather statistics at the end, but I find that weather is very location specific.+
<I know you can never have "too many teeth" or too many bones. What is a reasonable amount to have, to start with? Is there a "shelf life" on bones or teeth, in terms of the dog being exposed to the same items over and over?>
+ If you, the handler/trainer, practice clean habits with your sources, a low number of sources can be enough. But…… Bones are like sponges. If you bury them for a while, they will pick up some scents from the terrain they were in. I often will soak bones for a day them leave them out in the sun for days to leech out “other scents” to avoid the dog being trained on non-HRs.
Teeth, being denser, do not appear to be as big of an issue, but I will clean them anyway in water about every 3 months just to be sure.
Bones to have include long bones, finger/carpal/tarsal/…small bones, ribs, shards of ribs and long bones, vertebrae for throwing. I also like having a mandible as you usually get some teeth with them, so you have a nice mix with them. Some “experts” seem to think there is a difference between bone suppliers. Skulls Unlimited is based in OKC and I’ve visited them several times. Both the Bone Room and SU handler their bones with out gloves, both use similar suppliers, i.e. China and previous bone owners. Both will sometimes try to sell you bones that have been painted or drilled for articulation if you don’t instruct them otherwise. Sometimes SU can have some bones that haven’t been cleaned yet and you can talk them into letting you have them, but for historic work you want as clean as possible as your dog will be on the extreme scent work end. I have to work the whole gamut.
Some of my students tell me you can never have too many teeth. My buried training problems can often burn up up to a hundred teeth for a couple of months. I have that many after years of doing this and being very careful to always get all my sources back. Any time I teach at seminars, I usually end up losing some sources for various reasons including handlers have to watch their dog’s poop for the next couple of weeks. I figure that’s punishment enough for them to get a free source from me. +
<You mentioned, in one post, that you literally flood the dog those first few weeks with varied terrain, location, etc. and always working on obedience/training etc. Makes total sense, and that is what I would do. Do you, from the very beginning, also flood the dog with scent training in various scenarios from the very beginning?>
+You have to accommodate the puppy attention span. What I did with both Tempe and Murphy was set up their secondary environment with lots of sources for them to find and for me to make a big deal about. Puppies tend to be good for five minutes max of training, so I’ll train them 6-8 times a day in the guise of play. What this means is that if your puppy is awake then you are “ON”. You are totally aware of what the puppy is doing at all times. The puppy finds a little glass shaker of teeth and wants to posses it, then a toy appears and we play for 30 seconds. I go back to observation mode and let the puppy “discover” another scent source, on and on. You eventually want to observe the puppy starting to get into a routine of waking, eliminating, actively searching for scent sources, play, eating, play, pooping, sleep. I don’t get much sleep the first two-three months of puppydom, but the investment pays maximum dividends for the rest of the dog’s life. +
<Last, and it is so simple, I am almost too embarrassed to ask, but since I am new and have nothing to hide......I shall ask in public:) How do you determine dew point and wind degree? Do you actually measure it yourself or get it from weather sources?>
+I have a kestrel, but I tend to rely upon
www.wunderground.com for dew point and Barometric Pressure. I make my own observations on wind which you should become practiced with for multiple reasons. If you want to get wind direction, turn till it’s in your face then take a back azimuth with your compass. Some areas the air movement is minimal. I tend to use a little piece of flagging tape to observe movement for this or (more common) just pay attention to my environment, i.e. tops of grass, leaves, etc. It’s not uncommon for my dogs to have to work down in very protected areas such as embedded creek beds where the air movement is dictated by temperature variations and naturally channeling. The craft you have chosen to embark upon forces you to become very sensitive to air movement, temperature variations, soil variations, moisture variations, etc. It’s not something most learn overnight, just part of your foundation. For much of this, the dog will be one of your teachers as they are the scent experts. I also keep a digital meat thermometer to take temperatures such as soil, water, air. I have to do this in my job as well, so it’s become second nature. You can usually get one of these for $7-12. I usually end up breaking one about every 3 months, so I always have a spare around.+
Jim