Course Details
3 WEEK CLASS - Handler pressure can make or break a search. When you understand how to use pressure well, you will know how to avoid pressure that creates hesitation, confusion, or false alerts. With clarity in handler pressure, you can cover the area more smoothly, stay out of your dog’s way, and build more confident, accurate teamwork.
Great searches happen when the handler and dog work as a true team. Whether your handling style is more presentation-based or strongly dog-led, your movement, timing, and decisions should still be in response to your dog’s behaviors. This class helps you become more intentional so your dog can work with clarity and confidence with you as their partner.
In this class, you will learn how pressure shows up in the moments that matter most, including how to:
- Cover the search area thoroughly without taking over
- Move more efficiently from hide to hide
- Work through distractions with less disruption
- Create smoother, clearer container and vehicle searches
- Recognize how handler pressure can contribute to false alerts
- Understand how handler pressure can cause displacement behaviors
- Handle threshold hides and transition zones with more awareness and success
This class is a great fit for any sniffy team competing in any venue, and especially valuable for teams that:
- Lose time because searches feel slow or inefficient
- Have handlers who know they may be over-handling
- Regularly miss “one” hide in unknown-number searches
- Want searches to feel calmer, clearer, and more connected
These skills are especially valuable for teams competing in unknown-number searches, but the payoff goes far beyond that. If you want better communication and smooth teamwork, this class will give you practical tools you can apply to any level team.
Teaching Approach:
Lectures will be released on a weekly basis. The lectures will include written theory and concepts, diagrams, and video examples of situations where pressure is used. The material includes the progression of the concepts from entry-level competition to top-levels of competition.
The assignments are goal-oriented and include guidelines on how to set your search, what goal you are trying to achieve in the search, and guidelines for the specific skill being worked on. Video examples will be included.
Feedback on video submissions of the homework assignments is done through time stamps as well as voice-over feedback. Written feedback will also be used to help explain concepts or answer questions. Additional videos may be added to discussion forums if a topic is bringing further discussion beneficial to all students.
