April 29, 2011
My drug dog is not showing a lot of interest in the drug find, When I hide a clean drug toy (without the drugs) he hits it hard. What can I do?
Full Question:
Hello Ed,I am a out of K9 school for just over 1 year. My dog is a German Shepherd patrol/narc dog. I am having a problem with him alerting, scratching AFTER he locates the narcotics. I am reading him to the point where I know when he locates it. After he locates it, he walks away from it and shows little or no interest in scratching so I do not give him his reward which is a towel.
I've heard that putting the towel (reward) in with the find will increase his scratch? What do you think of this practice?
I'm not too sure of it because we tried a little experiment. I hid just the towel that was clean, no odor at all fresh out of the hot water wash with no detergent and the dog located the towel and scratched real hard.
Please give me your input.
Thank you,
Jeff
Ed's Answer:
Your problem is not that uncommon. It is an indication of a training problem.
You need to do more primary finds. A primary find is where the reward is hidden with the narcotic. It can help by making the towel jump out of the find like a rabbit - have a fish line on the towel and if possible have someone other than you jerk the fish line when you tell him to - or when you reach down and expose the towel.
To stop the dog from indicating on the towel you need to neutralize the dog to towels.
Have one clean towel hidden about 6 feet from the actual drug find (which also has a towel). This allows you to correct the dog off a clean towel and have a situation where he goes directly into a real find. It becomes very clear what's right and what's wrong.
A dog should be able to do a drug search with towels laying everywhere. He should be able to search when towels are in plain view - correct the dog if he tries to go to the towel. If you correct too hard the dog will shut down. Many dogs only require a "NO - FIND IT" with a pop on the line. The key to the correction is to find the level that the dog will leave the towel and go back to searching. Too hard of a correction on a soft dog will shut the dog down.
In normal training hide clean towels around the room and correct the dog off the towel that does not have any drugs.
The important thing here is to make sure your towels are clean. If you hide your finds you need to walk around the room and touch a lot of articles. Put your scent everywhere. Its always best to have someone else hide the dope.
Good luck
You need to do more primary finds. A primary find is where the reward is hidden with the narcotic. It can help by making the towel jump out of the find like a rabbit - have a fish line on the towel and if possible have someone other than you jerk the fish line when you tell him to - or when you reach down and expose the towel.
To stop the dog from indicating on the towel you need to neutralize the dog to towels.
Have one clean towel hidden about 6 feet from the actual drug find (which also has a towel). This allows you to correct the dog off a clean towel and have a situation where he goes directly into a real find. It becomes very clear what's right and what's wrong.
A dog should be able to do a drug search with towels laying everywhere. He should be able to search when towels are in plain view - correct the dog if he tries to go to the towel. If you correct too hard the dog will shut down. Many dogs only require a "NO - FIND IT" with a pop on the line. The key to the correction is to find the level that the dog will leave the towel and go back to searching. Too hard of a correction on a soft dog will shut the dog down.
In normal training hide clean towels around the room and correct the dog off the towel that does not have any drugs.
The important thing here is to make sure your towels are clean. If you hide your finds you need to walk around the room and touch a lot of articles. Put your scent everywhere. Its always best to have someone else hide the dope.
Good luck
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