Have dogs....will travel...part two

I have spent pretty much the entire summer traveling everywhere from Mississippi to Chicago to Vermont to North Carolina with anywhere from between 4 and 6 dogs. People tend to think of that as sounding much more difficult than it actually seemed to be. However I think the main point that is overlooked was that it was my job, or at least part of it, so it is not like I was doing something else and taking the dogs along. As the long hot summer progressed though I have learned a few things, tips of the trade so to speak....

No matter how cheap the motel, drive up doorways are totally worth it....Should anyone feel the need to point out the safety concerns, I should remind you that I was traveling most of the time with 2 malinois 2 rottweilers and a (noisy) german shepherd. Three of the above dogs were were trained police dogs. Go ahead, try to break into my room....


Take at least a few more crates than you have dogs. I didn't have to crate all the dogs in the room, just a few (I did want to sleep after all). It does make it much easier if you can put the crate in the room and then move the dog from the car to the room.Soft crates work well for crate trained dogs who respect crates. Whether we were in hotels, the car or the motorhome or someones house I think the dogs really appreciate having their own little "space" that is constant.

Take your own pillow. Sure they wash the pillowcase but do you really want to snuggle up to that hotel pillow??  In the case of the Motel 6 in Pinehurst NC a sleeping bag is also a handy item (no way was I sleeping in that bed.)

Traveling dogs get the occasional bout of diarrhea. Don't ask my why. It comes on suddenly and goes away just as fast. Canned pumpkin every few days seems to prevent this. It is cheap, the dogs like it and in this case a pinch of prevention (i.e. pumpkin) is certainly worth a pound of cure (i.e. fill in the blank).

Eat properly. Hotels are surrounded by some of the scariest places to eat. Did you know that the Cracker Barrel Restaurant refuses to provide nutritional information?? I wonder why that is... If it weren't for these two places I would have starved to death.

Along with healthy eating, exercising is also a good idea. The iphone apps from bluefin kept me on a training program AND eliminated the need for me to calculate distances (or keep track of where I was running for that matter). The iphone just plays your music and the app tells you when to start and stop running and keeps a GPS log of your run. It also expects you to progress through the program over 6-8 weeks so you don't want too big a gap between runs or you will regret it. The fear of future suffering is apparently a real good motivator...

You have to be a little adventurous though when your running "trail" turns into this though.

And also try not to annoy the locals....

A scenic view always helps the run go by faster though...

And finally, it also helps to travel with VERY good dogs who go with the flow and adapt to just about anywhere they happen to be spending the night with very little fuss. 



Is timing really all that important??

I am in the Chicago area helping teach a three day seminar for people doing nosework with their dogs. This is a relatively new sport where people train and trial with their pet dog to locate various (legal) odors. It is getting very popular and I particularly like that it is an outlet for dogs who would otherwise not do well in other sports.  It is probably what I would be doing with Calix if he were not a police dog.  During today's lecture I was contemplating something that has been running through my head lately.  What can I say, when I drive my mind tends to wander, unless I am driving through Chicago and then it is desperately wishing that it was someplace else....).

A common mantra in dog training is that timing is everything. Good dogs trainers have good timing etc. However IS timing really the critical element. I would propose that placement is everything. I have talked about this subject before but the more I train the more I see the extreme importance of the reward placement. Is good timing just good reward placement? I guess you could say that sometimes you have to have good timing to get the reward placed properly. However sometimes you don't. My primary goal in tracking is to let the track dog the teaching. Same with detection work. In tracking I plan my rewards (articles along the track) so that they occur in critical places along the track. I like to place them in locations where the dog is going to find them after he solves a difficult section of the track. I focus on placement a lot when training for competition obedience - I want to heavily reinforce two placement: the heel position and the front position. These are the two places that I want the dog to have a history of proper reward placement. The more I think about it the more I think that reward placement is an overlooked aspect of training and deserves as much credit and importance as good timing.

What are these people doing??
Students from the last Trainer's Course practicing their reward placement.

And jill demonstrating how she is able to take up a teeny tiny part of the hotel bed:

Driving and thinking about drive.....

All of this travel has not made updating the blog very convenient. In spite of my best intentions I always end up out of energy at the end of the day. The dogs, even all the "extra" ones that I seem to acquire, are pretty adaptable. However it still takes times to get all of them fed water walked and exercised each day. To say nothing of trying to accomplish their training goals while we are on the road. Take the past week for example - we have spent nights in Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina and Kentucky. We are currently en route to the Chicago area for a detection seminar. Steel was the only one who benefited from training today - he got a quick un-aged hard surface track in an empty parking lot while we were headed out of town.

It was an extremely boring drive from Virginia to the Kentucky-Ohio border today. The only interesting part of it was drooling over the horse properties along the interstate while going through Lexington KY. I did get to play good Samaritan for a lady who rolled into the rest stop while I was walking dogs - she didnt just have a flat, her tire was totally shredded. Like my friend Ann point out "once a police officer always a police officer....." Ford btw does a much better job of making their tire changing equipment accessible than does Toyota...

Fortunately for me, I do my best dog training thinking while driving.  This is also helped by friends who call and chat while I am driving. I am still on the fence about (hands free) talking and driving.  It sure does help pass the time - I just try to confine it to long stretches of interstate driving when traffic is low. One of the things that I was mulling about following today's conversations is how the dogs drive state is often overlooked when we are training. Different venues and tasks require different levels of drive. Competition obedience can be done in a lower drive state that a searching for explosives. And within a venue people also have different preferences for how much drive they want.  Lower levels of a sport or activity can often be done in a lower drive state but at higher levels or for more complex tasks the dog needs to be in a higher drive state. The problem is that people often start out teaching early tasks in lower drive and then have to invest time and effort bringing up drive in addition to making the tasks more complex. One of the problems with a lower drive is that although the dog might be able to perform the work, he can be distracted by his environment and this in turn reduces the intensity of the dog's focus on his task. I think it also allows the dog to become bored with the task - especially when it is an inherently slow or methodical task.

Teaching the dog a task in a low level of drive can lead to complications. It is not necessarily a given that the dog's drive will increase as he learns the task. Oftentimes if the dog learns in a low drive state then he continues to perform at that level - the handler's actions can push the drive up temporarily but it often may ebb back to its original state. My preference is to keep the task simple at first and to lay the foundation for the task with the dog in the drive state I want it to be in for higher level, more complex tasks. This is critically important for working dogs - many things beyond the handler's control will decrease the dog's overall level of focus and drive - fatigue, chaos and distractions, handler focusing on other things etc. If the drive is extremely high to begin with then this decrease is less likely and if it does occur the dog still has enough intensity for the task. As far as sport dogs - it also set them up to retain a focus and intensity for higher levels of work. But regardless of whether it is for sport or work I also think it is more fun for the dog, I know it certainly affects my level of enjoyment of training. I recently read a post on a discussion forum where someone pointed out that he does other activities for "fun" and that training dogs for police work was serious business. I guess I am at a loss to see how my enjoying my work will result in a decrease in my dogs' performances? It seems to me that my enjoyment and enthusiasm for the work can only help lay that foundation of the dog coming out to do the work in a heightened drive state. Maybe I will explain to Steel tomorrow that this is serious business and that he and I should not be having so much fun.

What are the odds?

That I would end up in a restaurant with the bathroom doors marked in this manner??

Have dogs...will travel....

Spent the day driving from Mississippi to Maryland for a 2 week long Detection Trainers Course that starts on Monday. I have 5 dogs traveling with me. In my world happiness is finding a motel where you can back right up to the room door AND you can find a spot like this next to a mcdonalds when everyone (including me) needs a bathroom break.

Calix gives the great big hotel bed his stamp of approval and is totally okay with sleeping on pink sheets....

First Oprah...now Dr. Phil....

The payback for the wonderful Mississippi winter weather is the current high temps and high humidity. Of course that pretty much describes much of the eastern US (which did NOT get our wonderful winter weather). I currently happen to be training two dogs to track as well as continuing to work several of mine. This requires some early mornings in order to get tracks for four dogs out of the way before it gets too hot. There's not much on TV at 5AM while I am getting ready. Nothing really except Dr. Phil. The other day I caught a comment he made as I was bringing one set of dogs in from outside and taking another set out (going out all together would result in a free-for-all play session that would result in no one taking care of their business).

Anyway Dr. Phil pointed out that people always ask him if something is "normal". He said that his standard answer is that if it is not disruptive to someone and doesn't cause the person any problems then it is "normal". I am paraphrasing (it was 5AM after all), I sure he also used some Texas colloquialism (my favorite is "no matter how flat you make a pancake it still has two sides).

In traveling around the country, teaching dog training to people, I often encounter owners who are embarrassed at the behavior of their dogs. Often this justified (or they wouldn't need my help) but sometimes they are just overly concerned because I am a "dog trainer". They feel like they need to apologize for their dogs behavior or they expect that I wouldn't approve - like I am going to issue a report card regarding what kind of a dog owner they are. Our dogs are to enjoy and different people have different priorities when it comes to what they want from them. What might be considered unacceptable behavior in one household might be encouraged and enjoyed in another. Take me for example. Very few people come to my door (2 malinois, 2 rottweilers and a german shepherd, go figure?). I have no interest or inclination to teach my pack of dogs to greet people politely at the door. I don't have a need for the skill and would much rather be spending my time on behaviors that are valuable to me (like tracking or finding illegal narcotics). In the rare instances that I have non-dog company come to my house I just send everyone to their kennels and let them out one at a time after everyone is in the house. In another household, with people coming and going, my dogs behavior might be unacceptable and might warrant someone seeking professional training help.

What IS unacceptable are two categories of behavior. The first category is bad behavior that does disrupt things and does cause problems.  Sometimes this can be perfectly normal behavior for the dog, however the behavior is not compatible with them existing in our household in harmony.  Those types of behaviors are usually obvious (although often challenging to fix!). The second category is less obvious - it is where allowing or condoning one behavior spills over into other behaviors. I see this a lot with reactive dogs or ones without self-control. They are rewarded or encouraged for their lack of self control in some areas and then the person is trying to address issues related to lack of self control in other areas. Often I encourage people to look at the bigger picture when they are trying to modify a very specific behavioral problem and expect consistent and compatible behaviors for such dogs.

This doesn't apply just to everyday and household manner. It also applies to sports (and work) in so many areas as well. With certain dogs there is a spillover in their attitude towards interacting with the handler. If the dog lacking self control does not have to have self control any in other aspects of his life then I think he is usually less likely to exhibit high levels of it in sport or work. This does not mean that the household has to be a boot camp environment (my own house is far from it) but I encourage people to look at the bigger picture of what message their are giving the dog by allowing or encouraging certain behaviors. If it is "normal" by Dr' Phil standards then great, otherwise takes measures to manage it or modify it - especially with young dogs.



One of the challenges of tracking in the middle of the summer. You find some relatively nice green grass and no sooner do you get a track laid than this happens!



Jilly Bean aka "Mom's Special Girl"

Due to their lifestyle since puppies all of my dogs are very adapt at going with the flow. It seems like no matter where we are or what we are doing they just adapt and take everything in stride no matter how odd or sudden the change is. This was particularly noticable over the past month of traveling all over the eastern half of the country. We traveled from Mississippi to Vermont, stayed in more than 10 different places over the month - motels rooms, motor home kennels, car, dog trailer, other people's houses.... We also had several unscheduled stops and changes due to car trouble. On top of that they also hung out during the day in the dog trailer parked next to multiple firing ranges at the FBI Academy for two weeks. There's probably not a caliber of weapon they havent heard fired by now.... Nothing phased them - they even accepted an intact male malinois that is with me for training into their group without a ripple.

However....one dog (even though I can't take credit for raising her from a puppy) gets points for being extra extra good. Jilly Bean aka "mom's special girl".

Not enough room in the crating area of the motor home for all the dogs? Jill gets left out.

Can only take one dog into the hotel? Jill gets to go...

Only room in the Jeep for one dog? Jill's my girl....

I was looking at her today and said "Why can't the rest of the dogs be as well behaved as you?" And I swear that I heard a voice in my head say "Because then you wouldn't appreciate ME so much!"