Post by oksaradt on Jul 24, 2008 13:07:12 GMT -5
I am not a fan of the "Scent Machine" for water work both from my foundation in ground-based work and from experiences with those that base their water work on such devices. In Oklahoma, our water ways tend to be very silty and rarely clear. We can not rely upon cameras to back up the dogs' hits. Our dogs have to be "spot on" with where remains are to have any credibility with rescue and law enforcement. What I'm going to touch on is the foundation my dogs get in water work. It should be no surprise that it is simply an extension of more baby steps in what they've already done.
When the dogs I work with are proficient with buried teeth at least six inches deep (or more) then I consider them ready to start water work. So, what is the most basic, simplest step to go to water work from here.
(Caveat: From recent experience with a student, I suggest not going down roads of "how can we play with this?" right off the bat. Dog handlers seem to just love to "what if" in their training and our dogs are the ones that suffer for it.)
To me, water is simply another medium to "bury" a source in. Yes, above freezing it's fluid. Yes, in the fluid state, diffusion is more pronounced. From experimentation, I can guarateee that in the solid state (ice & snow), diffusion still takes place.
SOOOO, this is how I start buried work with water. I get brand new, out of the box, quart mason jars. I get my post hole diggers and dig holes 8 feet apart such that the bottom of the mason jar rests on the bottom of the hole and the lip of the jar is "just" above ground level (....1/4 inch to 1/2 inch...) to avoid diffusion from the water into the ground except from above. I like to start with five, but the intent is to have more blanks than jars with sources in them. I place the jars and fill the rest of the hole back up with fill dirt to lock them into place with my gloved hand over the jar to prevent soil from spilling in. With five jars, I'll put 5-10 historic level teeth in jars 2 and 4 with jars 1,3, and 5 being blank. If I'm setting this up for other handlers, I'll pour clean sand in each jar sufficient to cover the teeth in the 2,4 and the same amount in jars 1,3, &5 to prevent handler cueing. I fill all the jars with clean, non-chlorinated water to within 1 inch of the lip, but I want an air gap at the top. My goal is not to teach the dog to check the air. My goal is to teach the dog to put nose down to the water and find scent at the water/air interface.
(Scent machines give air scenting dog teams a comfy feeling as it's similar to an area search, but their targeting is not very accurate due to working the air instead of the water surface. Just my opinion. I know the "experts" from Louisiana think the scent machine and visual buoys on pulleys are the way to go.)
I will pour water into the soil around the jar as well to pack in the jar and to slow down heating up the water in the jar due to soil temperatures in the hot months (Air temp is 101 here today).
I (personally) like to put my jars on a slope such that scent spill may flow down from one jar to another "blank" jar. I do this for a very special reason. I'll use Murphy's training to demonstrate this soon.
I leave the jars with water and teeth alone for at least 8 hours, but perhaps days as long as the water remains. With my current training set up, the surrounding grass is keeping evaporation to a minimum.
The dog is run along the line of jars. In Murphy's case, he was started 100 feet away and he got to find the jars on his own. The first time Murphy found them, he indicated on the lowest jar (number 5). I asked him to "check", he did and moved on. He found Jar 4, put his nose to the water, paused, looked at me, I was examining a fine cloud up above. Murphy pawed the jar on his own. That cloud looked so very special. Murphy barked, I exploded and threw his ball while woo hooing. Murphy came back, we traded food for ball. I asked him to go back to work. He walked over Jar 3 without a 2nd glance. He paused over Jar 2, but then visually saw Jar 1 that I intentionally place higher up out of the ground for visual effect. He went to check it, sighed, walked away. I let him dink then he came back to Jar 2, put his nose to it, and indicated. I rewarded him and we went on to work other problems.
Four days later, I decided to incorporate the water work in that day's problems again. I had not touched the jars. My wife tripped over a blank one on her walk up to the garden in the dark two days earlier to move sprinklers, cussed me, and chewed me out later for putting training exercises in her way. *shrug* life happens.
This time I asked Murphy to start with Jar 1 by using a "check" command. We progressed down the jars with a check with Murphy indicating properly on jars 2 & 4. Last we came to Jar 5, the lowest jar that should have "spill scent" from Jar 4, but no source. I asked Murphy to check it. He put his nose down to the water, looked at me, then walked back up to Jar 4, touched it with his paw and barked. I was overjoyed. This is act expresses exactly what I want in an HRD dog. He checked a location for me as I asked, but he knew his scent work enough to tell his moronic handler, "Sorry, that jar sucks, but the good stuff....well, now....it's up here in Jar 4!"
So many handlers get locked into training their dogs in blind obedience. The hunter that trains for the test where "the dog has to retrieve specific "ducks" and ignore others because the hunter wishes it" would never work out for me. HRD work is not about who is in control. I may send my dog into an area to find scent. I may have a "clue" where I think my dog will find it. I want my dog to be intelligent enough and confident enough to tell me, "yea yea, I checked there, but (look bubba) the source is over here!" This is why there should never be HRD dog competitions because fastest is not always best, sometimes the slow thorough dog will find the evidence you want more reliably than the dog that races about the area looking explosive and impressive, but the nose isn't at 100 percent.
Other caveats with the "scent machine method" to warn you about. I've observed that this training can be an issue with dogs that are "visual". More than once I've been asked to confirm buoys placed by other dog teams with my dog. If I'd trained my dog on the buoy system, I'd have a chance that the dog would think, "hmmm, scent in the air, buoy in the water, it must be good! yea, I'll go with it." Instead, my dog placed her nose to the water near the buoys and to a one turned her head away as if I was setting her up for failure. The bodies were found elsewhere. Dax (that day) had to pass on 12 buoys placed in the water by other handlers. And, no, I hated being asked to do that duty by the IC, but the divers were in dangerous water and could have gotten injured investigating each false buoy. We all got letters of commendation from the governor of that state. It didn't make it any easier that people died that day. The letter got shoved in a file somewhere.
I won't work the jars more than once a week with Murphy and if he gets to the point where he just goes to the right jar without checking the others, then I'll pull up stakes and create another problem for him. When I do that, I'll probably change one of the teeth sets for bone. When providence provides, he'll get to work creeks, rivers and lakes with similar problems in the real situations......starting with teeth. Whole bodies are easy compared to teeth...really they are. They put off an oil slick that rises to the top of the water and acts pretty much like an oil spill on water. Murphy will get to start this type of work when he hits one year of age. I'll post later on the strategy to use dogs to get very close to where drowning victims' bodies lie.
If I need to clarify something, please post a response as well, I know what all this looks like in my head. I set these up routinely and I'm sure I may not have added that one point you need to train your dog.
Regards,
Jim
When the dogs I work with are proficient with buried teeth at least six inches deep (or more) then I consider them ready to start water work. So, what is the most basic, simplest step to go to water work from here.
(Caveat: From recent experience with a student, I suggest not going down roads of "how can we play with this?" right off the bat. Dog handlers seem to just love to "what if" in their training and our dogs are the ones that suffer for it.)
To me, water is simply another medium to "bury" a source in. Yes, above freezing it's fluid. Yes, in the fluid state, diffusion is more pronounced. From experimentation, I can guarateee that in the solid state (ice & snow), diffusion still takes place.
SOOOO, this is how I start buried work with water. I get brand new, out of the box, quart mason jars. I get my post hole diggers and dig holes 8 feet apart such that the bottom of the mason jar rests on the bottom of the hole and the lip of the jar is "just" above ground level (....1/4 inch to 1/2 inch...) to avoid diffusion from the water into the ground except from above. I like to start with five, but the intent is to have more blanks than jars with sources in them. I place the jars and fill the rest of the hole back up with fill dirt to lock them into place with my gloved hand over the jar to prevent soil from spilling in. With five jars, I'll put 5-10 historic level teeth in jars 2 and 4 with jars 1,3, and 5 being blank. If I'm setting this up for other handlers, I'll pour clean sand in each jar sufficient to cover the teeth in the 2,4 and the same amount in jars 1,3, &5 to prevent handler cueing. I fill all the jars with clean, non-chlorinated water to within 1 inch of the lip, but I want an air gap at the top. My goal is not to teach the dog to check the air. My goal is to teach the dog to put nose down to the water and find scent at the water/air interface.
(Scent machines give air scenting dog teams a comfy feeling as it's similar to an area search, but their targeting is not very accurate due to working the air instead of the water surface. Just my opinion. I know the "experts" from Louisiana think the scent machine and visual buoys on pulleys are the way to go.)
I will pour water into the soil around the jar as well to pack in the jar and to slow down heating up the water in the jar due to soil temperatures in the hot months (Air temp is 101 here today).
I (personally) like to put my jars on a slope such that scent spill may flow down from one jar to another "blank" jar. I do this for a very special reason. I'll use Murphy's training to demonstrate this soon.
I leave the jars with water and teeth alone for at least 8 hours, but perhaps days as long as the water remains. With my current training set up, the surrounding grass is keeping evaporation to a minimum.
The dog is run along the line of jars. In Murphy's case, he was started 100 feet away and he got to find the jars on his own. The first time Murphy found them, he indicated on the lowest jar (number 5). I asked him to "check", he did and moved on. He found Jar 4, put his nose to the water, paused, looked at me, I was examining a fine cloud up above. Murphy pawed the jar on his own. That cloud looked so very special. Murphy barked, I exploded and threw his ball while woo hooing. Murphy came back, we traded food for ball. I asked him to go back to work. He walked over Jar 3 without a 2nd glance. He paused over Jar 2, but then visually saw Jar 1 that I intentionally place higher up out of the ground for visual effect. He went to check it, sighed, walked away. I let him dink then he came back to Jar 2, put his nose to it, and indicated. I rewarded him and we went on to work other problems.
Four days later, I decided to incorporate the water work in that day's problems again. I had not touched the jars. My wife tripped over a blank one on her walk up to the garden in the dark two days earlier to move sprinklers, cussed me, and chewed me out later for putting training exercises in her way. *shrug* life happens.
This time I asked Murphy to start with Jar 1 by using a "check" command. We progressed down the jars with a check with Murphy indicating properly on jars 2 & 4. Last we came to Jar 5, the lowest jar that should have "spill scent" from Jar 4, but no source. I asked Murphy to check it. He put his nose down to the water, looked at me, then walked back up to Jar 4, touched it with his paw and barked. I was overjoyed. This is act expresses exactly what I want in an HRD dog. He checked a location for me as I asked, but he knew his scent work enough to tell his moronic handler, "Sorry, that jar sucks, but the good stuff....well, now....it's up here in Jar 4!"
So many handlers get locked into training their dogs in blind obedience. The hunter that trains for the test where "the dog has to retrieve specific "ducks" and ignore others because the hunter wishes it" would never work out for me. HRD work is not about who is in control. I may send my dog into an area to find scent. I may have a "clue" where I think my dog will find it. I want my dog to be intelligent enough and confident enough to tell me, "yea yea, I checked there, but (look bubba) the source is over here!" This is why there should never be HRD dog competitions because fastest is not always best, sometimes the slow thorough dog will find the evidence you want more reliably than the dog that races about the area looking explosive and impressive, but the nose isn't at 100 percent.
Other caveats with the "scent machine method" to warn you about. I've observed that this training can be an issue with dogs that are "visual". More than once I've been asked to confirm buoys placed by other dog teams with my dog. If I'd trained my dog on the buoy system, I'd have a chance that the dog would think, "hmmm, scent in the air, buoy in the water, it must be good! yea, I'll go with it." Instead, my dog placed her nose to the water near the buoys and to a one turned her head away as if I was setting her up for failure. The bodies were found elsewhere. Dax (that day) had to pass on 12 buoys placed in the water by other handlers. And, no, I hated being asked to do that duty by the IC, but the divers were in dangerous water and could have gotten injured investigating each false buoy. We all got letters of commendation from the governor of that state. It didn't make it any easier that people died that day. The letter got shoved in a file somewhere.
I won't work the jars more than once a week with Murphy and if he gets to the point where he just goes to the right jar without checking the others, then I'll pull up stakes and create another problem for him. When I do that, I'll probably change one of the teeth sets for bone. When providence provides, he'll get to work creeks, rivers and lakes with similar problems in the real situations......starting with teeth. Whole bodies are easy compared to teeth...really they are. They put off an oil slick that rises to the top of the water and acts pretty much like an oil spill on water. Murphy will get to start this type of work when he hits one year of age. I'll post later on the strategy to use dogs to get very close to where drowning victims' bodies lie.
If I need to clarify something, please post a response as well, I know what all this looks like in my head. I set these up routinely and I'm sure I may not have added that one point you need to train your dog.
Regards,
Jim