Post by oksaradt on Jul 23, 2009 19:31:17 GMT -5
If you've painfully (I'm sure) read through all these posts, I've touched on overlaps and highs.
An Overlap is where you have multiple sources in close proximity to each other. In my logs I often comment on loosest or tightest overlap in feet. The handler/trainer has to pay attention to this because he/she needs to know how close together their dog can discern more than one source. For area search dog handlers this tends not to be a big deal because even when they place multiple live subjects for the dog to find, they tend to be a fair distance apart.
With the HRD dog, overlaps can be boogers from feet to inches. Sources can be scattered skeletal where you are asked to flag ALL the bones in an area, but not to remove any of them; Thus, your dog is going to get tired of you telling it, "Find More" Easiest overlaps are of dissimilar sources, such as muscle tissue versus adipose tissue. Both have distinct chemical make-ups that make them stand out to the dog. Hardest overlaps are when you have strong sources (high diffusion rates such as bloody sources) overshadowing something muted such as a dry tooth. In between and almost as bad are identical sources that overlap each other. Such a case could happen when a confused college student wishing to make a point creates a bomb to set off at a major sporting event. Said confused student checks his work one last time and it goes off prematurely sending him (in little bitty pieces) in lots of directions. This was common knowledge, so I can mention it. Most dogs are not trained to handle this type of work as "it's just everywhere."
Soooo, as we train our dogs, we should strive to slowly and steadily introduce tighter overlaps for the dog to solve. Doing this all the time creates a very slow dog as it checks everywhere. Only doing this once in a while creates a dog that misses sources. A happy medium must be found and it is dependent on the dog's nose and problem solving abilities. If we could remove sources as they are found, life would be easy, but rarely do we get that option. Law enforcement wants to take photos, place numbered tags, draw lines with string, etc. to reconstruct the event. They are in charge and we play by their rules.
Soooo, a special type of overlap is the high-low. In this regard, the overlap is in two dimensions. Not only do we need to keep in mind how far apart the sources are linearly, but we also need to keep in mind vertical spacing. I can remember one seminar I attended where I came in late to a problem set created for the advanced students. The dog handlers were befuddled that their dogs were ignoring an obvious visual source on the floor and walking around with glazed looks on their faces with noses up and level over and over again. I watched this and then looked up to see a source spinning on a ceiling fan blade some eight feet up in the air. I was sworn to secrecy by the problem setter when I started laughing.....yea, twisted sense of humor. In that case the overlap was 8 feet vertically and 2-to-5 feet linearly with the scent currents being affected by those frustrated handlers walking around with their dogs instead of standing back and letting the dogs work.
While that is an evil problem, the trainer should start considering that when they set up an elevated problem that they consider a surface problem nearby, paying attention to the distance. One can start this with bones and teeth then migrate to dissimilar tissue sources then finally to identical sources both skeletal or tissue/blood related. As always this should be performed in baby steps. I tend not to start my dog on high-lows until he can nail complicated highs(elevated) on a regular 10-in-a-row basis. Murphy gets to start this now as he showed me how easy four elevated could be in a one-acre problem set. As always, my job at this point was simply to control his area to that acre. Air Temp was 85, it was sun/shade, and sources had been out for 10 hours as my job kept me from working it earlier. Considering we just came off multiple weeks of 100+ temps, 85F was a cool day.
Note: While I think HRD dogs should be able to perform high-lows, I doubt I'd ever set up an evaluation with one as the handler goes through enough stress as it is. I have been tested with high-lows on more than one occassion and can remember (laughing) when Dax had a high-low of five feet vertical and two feet horizontal. She barked. I asked show me. She jumped up to touch towards the high with her right paw and then dropped and touched the other with her left paw. I'd never seen her do this, but with faith in my dog, I stated, "I suppose I have a low there and a high up there." I rewarded my dog and the evaluator congratulated me after he stopped laughing and wished he had a video camera to have caught it.
Regards,
Jim
An Overlap is where you have multiple sources in close proximity to each other. In my logs I often comment on loosest or tightest overlap in feet. The handler/trainer has to pay attention to this because he/she needs to know how close together their dog can discern more than one source. For area search dog handlers this tends not to be a big deal because even when they place multiple live subjects for the dog to find, they tend to be a fair distance apart.
With the HRD dog, overlaps can be boogers from feet to inches. Sources can be scattered skeletal where you are asked to flag ALL the bones in an area, but not to remove any of them; Thus, your dog is going to get tired of you telling it, "Find More" Easiest overlaps are of dissimilar sources, such as muscle tissue versus adipose tissue. Both have distinct chemical make-ups that make them stand out to the dog. Hardest overlaps are when you have strong sources (high diffusion rates such as bloody sources) overshadowing something muted such as a dry tooth. In between and almost as bad are identical sources that overlap each other. Such a case could happen when a confused college student wishing to make a point creates a bomb to set off at a major sporting event. Said confused student checks his work one last time and it goes off prematurely sending him (in little bitty pieces) in lots of directions. This was common knowledge, so I can mention it. Most dogs are not trained to handle this type of work as "it's just everywhere."
Soooo, as we train our dogs, we should strive to slowly and steadily introduce tighter overlaps for the dog to solve. Doing this all the time creates a very slow dog as it checks everywhere. Only doing this once in a while creates a dog that misses sources. A happy medium must be found and it is dependent on the dog's nose and problem solving abilities. If we could remove sources as they are found, life would be easy, but rarely do we get that option. Law enforcement wants to take photos, place numbered tags, draw lines with string, etc. to reconstruct the event. They are in charge and we play by their rules.
Soooo, a special type of overlap is the high-low. In this regard, the overlap is in two dimensions. Not only do we need to keep in mind how far apart the sources are linearly, but we also need to keep in mind vertical spacing. I can remember one seminar I attended where I came in late to a problem set created for the advanced students. The dog handlers were befuddled that their dogs were ignoring an obvious visual source on the floor and walking around with glazed looks on their faces with noses up and level over and over again. I watched this and then looked up to see a source spinning on a ceiling fan blade some eight feet up in the air. I was sworn to secrecy by the problem setter when I started laughing.....yea, twisted sense of humor. In that case the overlap was 8 feet vertically and 2-to-5 feet linearly with the scent currents being affected by those frustrated handlers walking around with their dogs instead of standing back and letting the dogs work.
While that is an evil problem, the trainer should start considering that when they set up an elevated problem that they consider a surface problem nearby, paying attention to the distance. One can start this with bones and teeth then migrate to dissimilar tissue sources then finally to identical sources both skeletal or tissue/blood related. As always this should be performed in baby steps. I tend not to start my dog on high-lows until he can nail complicated highs(elevated) on a regular 10-in-a-row basis. Murphy gets to start this now as he showed me how easy four elevated could be in a one-acre problem set. As always, my job at this point was simply to control his area to that acre. Air Temp was 85, it was sun/shade, and sources had been out for 10 hours as my job kept me from working it earlier. Considering we just came off multiple weeks of 100+ temps, 85F was a cool day.
Note: While I think HRD dogs should be able to perform high-lows, I doubt I'd ever set up an evaluation with one as the handler goes through enough stress as it is. I have been tested with high-lows on more than one occassion and can remember (laughing) when Dax had a high-low of five feet vertical and two feet horizontal. She barked. I asked show me. She jumped up to touch towards the high with her right paw and then dropped and touched the other with her left paw. I'd never seen her do this, but with faith in my dog, I stated, "I suppose I have a low there and a high up there." I rewarded my dog and the evaluator congratulated me after he stopped laughing and wished he had a video camera to have caught it.
Regards,
Jim