Tuesday, December 18, 2012

There is No Crying in Dog Sports…

A friend and I were recently commenting on people who cry while competing with or training dogs. While not prone to crying in public - EVER I guess I can sort of understand where the emotions come from. Dog training is challenging on so many levels. You are attempting to communicate with another species. Sometimes the stakes for success are high. We often invest a lot in our success financially, timewise and emotionally. We put lofty expectations on ourselves and our dogs. We unfairly compare ourselves to others who may or may not have the same challenges. However it seems that many people who participate in dog sports forget the most important part - it’s a “sport”. Something that we do for fun (even if we get paid for it, if you are getting paid and still not having fun then that is whole 'nother conversation). Crying tears of frustration or unhappiness is taking the sport way too seriously, I don’t care what level you are competing at. If a failed start line stay or crooked heeling or a missed weave pole entry are our biggest problems then I think we are fortunate. Fortunate that we have the time, money, health and knowledge to focus on training our dogs. 
I recently drove to Chicago to compete for Steel’s VST title. Given the low odds of passing the test, making the long drive was a gamble . I am far from well off financially and had to plan my trip carefully (hotels that offer free breakfast are also providing a free lunch whether they know it or not). It would be nice to not have to pinch pennies quite so tightly. However I am also thankful to be well off enough to be able to buy food, put gas in my car and participate in something that I love doing. Having not passed would have made the drive home much longer but it would not have been the end of the world. Winning is nice but certainly not worth tears when it doesn’t happen. Being relatively new to dog sports, I am amazed at how cranky and unhappy people sometimes seem to be. I pretty much always think this but am particularly reminded of it this week. I was going to include one of my favorite movie clips – Tom Hanks screaming “There’s no crying in baseball!!” but thought I would add a few things instead that should make us cry....







Saturday, December 15, 2012

It's not really that complicated....

Suddenly having an unexpected new "training project" has resulted in my recently watching some training videos and giving a lot of thought to planning the details of my project. Thanks to the internet there is a vast amount of very useful information - not a lot is new to me at this point but some of the information serves as reminders or hints on how to tweak my own training. Note that I usually only access information from people that have a training philosophy relatively similar to mine. Open mindedness is good in some things but I am comfortable in the choices I have made regarding how I will or will not train. There is a HUGE amount of training information out there. Given human nature it is easy to make things very very complicated; sometimes to astonishing levels.

I teach dog training to a lot of great people for a living - not pet dog people but police and military dog trainers, search and rescue dog trainers, professional dog trainers etc. People at the top of their game and who usually really want to be in our classes and are passionate about learning to train better detection dogs. That in itself makes my job fun. The other bonus is seeing dogs learn in a clear manner, we don't complicate things but just allow the dog to channel his drive and teach himself how to satisfy that drive. And they continue to impress and amaze us in their ability to do just that - if we dont confuse them by making things complicated. Yes detection work is important. If it fails things blow up, people die, large amounts of drugs get missed etc. However the teaching is very simple - I merely explain through a series of steps that if he gets to the source of the odor then I will give him something that he badly wants. We need to take steps to ensure that the dog does not use other clues besides scent to be successful but otherwise all we need is a dog with the correct drives. We then get out of the way and let him work.

Below Steel demonstrates this concept. Notice in particular his response to the tennis ball when I start working him. He sees it and immediately starts searching. He knows the fastest and most efficient way to get the fight that the tennis ball symbolizes. He also incidently demonstrates that I am about as relevant in narcotics detection as I am in tracking....


Thursday, December 13, 2012

"Puzzles"

I have been slacking off at blogging lately. It is ironic that the times when I do the most thinking about dog training are also the times when I am too busy to write about it. I have just finished teaching two great tracking clinics, one in NC and one in SC. In addition we currently have a three week long detection trainers course in session here in Jackson. Really fun group of people and they have made some great progress with the dogs they are learning to train. I also have a few other dog training projects and updates that I will cover in the blog in the near future. While our schedule is not yet completed it is looking very likely that the dogs and I will be “on the road” for the first half of 2013. Should be a fun and interesting year!
In the meantime, although he is now an official AKC Champion Tracking, Steel is not about to kick back and let me get away without tracking him. Problem is that although I am not really concerned about “titles” or winning; I am very goal oriented and am sort of struggling with how to keep Steel entertained and happy without a current goal to work toward. I have also been tracking some young dogs so can’t spend as much time aging his tracks right now, at least not the three to five hour old tracks that he was working. To keep him happy I have been setting up tracks with little weird scent pictures for him throughout the track. Stealing a term from detection training, I call them “puzzles”. Our goal is to challenge the dog and expand his skill set by setting up a puzzle. However the dog needs drive for the puzzles to be effective, the more they want to succeed the quicker they will progress through working the puzzles.  However we don’t want to overface the dog and create in his mind about whether he can solve the puzzle. We want the dog the enjoy the challenge and to go away from the puzzle having gained knowledge and confidence solving it.  Steel is at that point in his tracking and gets a big thrill working through tricky (at least for his current skill set) scent pictures. Here is a clip of a short track we did a few mornings ago. For those that are interested I have listed the "narration" below the clip.

0:00 The Start Routine. This is important and something that I really harp on when teaching. It has many purposes. Initially it gives the dog important clues about what is going to happen. It also creates a habitual mental state in the dog - they then have the attention and drive to do the task at hand. Through management and channeling drive in the proper direction I have a dog that comes out of the car, does his business and then charges over to demand to be harnessed and directed toward the start.
0:33 Starting the track facing the wrong direction and article not exactly at starting point.
1:28 Right hand turn was made in a stairstep pattern. If you look carefully you can see Steel do the stairstep.
1:52 Isn't this a cool shot??

1:55 road crossing. This is an access road to the marina. Lots of vehicle traffic, people etc. A steep berm on one side, a rock slope and water on the other. Steel successfully crosses and then decides to double check other options, then obviously convinces himself that his choice was right.
2:33 You can see him start to correctly cross the road here. He then loops back and works the area more heavily before crossing. Do I know why? No. I DO however know that the only way to progress is to let him make his own decisions. With both detection work and with tracking I have observed that as the dog gains experience (on his own) the "wasted motion" decreases. That step cannot be rushed.
3:30 Article!
3:57 track runs to left along edge of ditch. Scent is likely to be pushed down into the low lying area.
4:23 This part was fun. There are a series of berms that run to the right of the ditch. The track winds through the berms, sometimes to the left, sometimes to the right and then sometimes up on top.
5:30 The End....