From a Discussion on PetHunters Yahoo Group, November 22, 2008

----- Original Message -----
From: Jackie Phillips
To: pethunters@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Saturday, November 22, 2008 11:43 PM
Subject: [pethunters] Training Question

OK, I have a training question. I will admit, that I haven't checked Kat's book to see if this is in there, but I am not at home right now, and I wanted to post this to group before I forgot or got distracted by other things. I promise I will check Kat's book when I get home later tonight.

I have taught Dino a specific alert when he finds a cat. I have taught him to run back and jump on me with his front feet. I say "Show Me" and he runs back and jumps on me with his front feet. I have found myself using this same indication when he runs out of scent (if he has made a wrong turn) to tell me he has discovered this. I say "show me" and he runs back and jumps on me. Should I have different indications he makes to me for different things? What might be the different indications I would run into (for example, running out of scent, finding a cat, finding something else)? What other indications do people use for their dogs to tell them different things? I didn't want to try relying on me reading his body language. I want to use very specific indications he makes to me with all the different things we will come across.

Thanks. Jackie


Victor Totis wrote:

Hey Jackie

The short rule when your are teaching dogs is that you can have as many cues (word, body language, equipment, etc) that represents a single behavior but only one behavior per cue. For example people often use "down" to mean lay on the ground, stop jumping on me, stop jumping on company, get off the couch, get off the counter etc. It is not fair to the dog nor is it a very efficient way to communicate with your dog, and it usually becomes a training nightmare resulting in dogs that choose to do "None of the above." So from a working the dog standpoint yes you can have many things become the triggers for the dog to come back and jump on you. Having said all that I would not do that with my dogs. 1) I want the trained indication to ONLY mean that the dog has found the strongest source of scent of the target odor and worked it to the source. That way, me the handler is not confused about what my dog is telling me. If my dog works to a gate or door or hole in the ground and lays down I can have some confidence that my dog believes that the source is there. 2) If my dog finds the wrong thing and shows interest in a clump of fur or the wrong cat or whatever w/o the trained indication I know it is probably not the animal we are looking for. (Not that I don't walk up and look good an hard and poke at it and just confirm that for myself every time.) 3) If the dog looses the track I try to shape a natural behavior stronger so I turn that cue which may be difficult to read into something less subtle. For example if the dog naturally slows down or lifts her head when she gets out of scent I might praise her and encourage her to stop and look at me. Until I get a dog that stops and turns and that look says "we need to go back and find the trail". Along those lines it may also be telling me that I need to step up to the plate think about what I am seeing and help to get her nose back into the right place. Just the way my dogs and I try to work together nothing is written in stone others on the list may have different ideas/opinions.

Laura Totis
www.ljttraining.com



Laura put it pretty well. I have Loki trained (theoretically) for a jump-alert when he finds "that specific" scent source--whether that be the live animal or a scent article. He does a return-sit (and nose-poke at the treat bag) for a negative trail indication. We're switching to a stay-sit for cadaver. Those were all his natural responses, and I'm encouraging them. When he loses scent, he hesitates and looks at me--so I'm encouraging him to come back. When he finds cadaver, he actually doesn't like it, so he kind of stops and "loiters". Anubis has different alerts--he has the "pull mommy on her face" alert when he finds a cat, and the "eat it" alert for cadaver. ;-) OK, he's *supposed* to have a sit for cats and a touch-touch alert for cadaver, and he does sometimes, when he's not too busy pulling me down and/or tasting (ewww).We train for perfection, so that when we're in reality, if we get 50% we're doing OK. Do I always, every single time, get those alerts? No. The other day, I was out looking for a cat, and we found five others, plus a dead mouse part and a spot on the street where a squirrel had been hit (a small amount of squirrel fur in the spot), but not the owner's cat. Anubis found one cat from across the street (we were knocking on a door to check a yard, and he pinpointed it across the street, up the driveway, and at the corner of the house...in the dark!). I read his body language on that one--his radar-dish ears swivelled around, he turned into a doggy-statue, and I knew he'd seen/smelled something. Another cat, we were walking by a car, and both dogs tried to make like rabbits and dive underneath. Sure enough, a cat was under there. So I didn't get the "trained" responses, but we still found all five other cats!On a more complicated case--let's take the case of the cat-daver I found along with two others a month or so ago, in the middle of the woods. For something like that, you do need a clear response for each indication. If she was an indoor cat, we'd have wanted to try and follow a trail to get a direction to start the area search. I'd want to be pretty clear when Loki was telling me that her scent stopped, vs that he smelled "live kitty" somewhere nearby, because that would be two very different responses from me. One would set a perimeter of search, the other would set a *target area* of search. Then, when we're searching, and we hit a "hotspot," I definitely want the dogs to be able to tell me, are we looking at a spot under a bush where a coyote has had a dinner, and there's blood I can't see (sit or touch-touch), or are we looking at a spot where that cat was sitting 10 minutes ago, and the scent source is still so strong that it may as well still be there (jump)?So, like Laura said, there's no "rules" on how to do it, but there are things that work better for simple reasons... :-)

Donna