Self-Study

 What's Your Sign

When watching your dog search, notice their body cues when in odor and then the change of behavior right before they indicate.  What do they do when they hit the scent cone?  Before they indicate?  Is there a tell-tale sign that they are in odor?  Then what do they do at odor?  Nose press, freeze, tap and look?  Is it different in a novel or busy environment?

This is where having videos of your searches is priceless.  Sometimes it is hard to see the change in behavior, however, replaying in slow motion can really bring to light the small changes.  Also be sure to note how your dog may change in a novel environment or a crowded area as you may need to watch for very subtle signs.  

This is a fun game to learn your dog’s sign.  Complete three searches in the same area, set up your camera to video them coming down the line (straight into the camera), like in the example.  Watch the lecture video, you want to drive them down the line and finish. For the blank and the distractor, you cue search, go down the line and when they have checked the last box, say "finish" reward and done.  We don’t want to go back up the line so be sure to drive past that last box and say “finish” or your finish cue.

Be sure to video all three searches.  It is best to set a recovery box or recovery search away from the area you are working this exercise.  Make sure the boxes are not visible and the odor is not moving into the search area for this exercise.  Do not put odor in the exercise search area until the very last search as the first two searches do not have odor so we do not want any lingering odor.   You can take your dog to the recovery box/search between each repetition so that they do not have back to back no odor searches.

Set 8-10 cold containers in a straight row – this is your blank search

Run like a normal search, and drive your dog down the row of containers.  As your dog finishes the last container, say finish and move away to reward for searching

(you can go to your recovery box area to reward on odor before working the distraction search.)

Change out a cold container with one a distractor, run the search.  Same as the blank, as your dog finishes the last container, say finish and move away to reward

Remove the distractor container and add the hot box (do not put the hot box the same place the distractor box was located).   Run the search. 

You do not want your dog to turn around and work back up the boxes for the blank or distractor search.  However, if they do not find the hot box on the first pass on the odor search, then turn around and go back up the row. 

Now you have clean footage of blank, distractor, and odor.   This is not something I would do often, but it gives you great information. 

Bam! Blank, distractor, odor

Homework:  Set this up and run with your dog.  Be sure to use a different container for distractor and then for odor.  Also be sure the odor is not put in the same spot the distractor was in the line.  *** NOTE*** if you have not started any distractor work yet, do not play this game.