A few weeks ago I introduced myself to the group. Letting you know that I would be getting back into my first passion in life.. Dog Training. After a pretty long hiatus being out of the profession for more then Ten years now.. So with this goal in mind I've chosen to save a dog from the shelter. Went down last week and picked out what my gutts telling me is 'the one'.. Goal is/was to find a dog to work towards scent detection work.. An area I have not truly explored before this. To in the end dedicate myself towards new methodology's in my training technics and style.. Working towards mastering Marker Training.. Consider me a cross over trainer from the old school..

Thought I would show you folks the dog and let you follow along with the public in my adventure.. I'll post some derect feedback looking for input from this group with training queries soon..

General public won't have the answers and feedback to many of my questions, as I go along.. Hoping some of you will have the experience to help with feedback as I go along.. Meet 'Pongo'

https://plus.google.com/+MarkFerrasci/posts/98JYHaGLrz1

Thank you in advance for your feedback and exchanges. As we go along in the next few months I'm going to need it..

He's been with me five days as of today Friday and we are already well along with our relationship build with him..

MF.

Congratulations on your new dog! What kind of scent detection work will you be doing?

Congrats on the new dog.

I trained my first AKC tracking dog back in the early 90s.

SAR live find, cadaver, both boat and land and article search.

Also Schutzhund tracking but nothing like seeing a dog follow a "real" track/trail.

You'll have a blast!

Well I have a buddy thats doing Bedbug detection as well as certified to do bomb dogs. Probably start out teaching Bedbug detection.. But who knows, right now I'm not even sure he's going to make it out of the gate. Always using his nose and I know he has the drive in this respect, but he has no real ball drive.. Without this its kind of hard to que him for the reward and get him started. Trying my best to build his toy drive now and get him in the game. He'll run after the toy once or twice but I have to get animated as all get out to keep him in the game.. Crossing my fingers I can stimulate him more and get him into it at some point.. Some times you wish you could just wave a magic wand and say pufta and get the drives you need to get the job done, but we all know this isn't that easy..

Little bit discouraged right now but its the chance you take with a shelter dog, you just really dont know what kind of hurdles your going to have to get over, till you start to work with the animal..

MF.

Well I have a buddy thats doing Bedbug detection as well as certified to do bomb dogs. Probably start out teaching Bedbug detection.. But who knows, right now I'm not even sure he's going to make it out of the gate. Always using his nose and I know he has the drive in this respect, but he has no real ball drive.. Without this its kind of hard to que him for the reward and get him started. Trying my best to build his toy drive now and get him in the game. He'll run after the toy once or twice but I have to get animated as all get out to keep him in the game.. Crossing my fingers I can stimulate him more and get him into it at some point.. Some times you wish you could just wave a magic wand and say pufta and get the drives you need to get the job done, but we all know this isn't that easy..

Little bit discouraged right now but its the chance you take with a shelter dog. You just really dont know what kind of hurdles your going to have to get over, till you start to work with the animal..

MF.

You just got him, right? Second hand dogs can be adjusting for the first couple months.

You can always use a food reward, too. My airscent SAR pup was on food rewards until almost one year old since that was consistently higher. I've just switched to using a toy reward most of the time

I agree that this dog will need time to adjust. His world has just been turned upside-down, again. Don't know if you got any history on him, but many rescue dogs have just never been trained or played with or even know what to do with a toy.

With the rescue I volunteer with, we tell adopters to expect it to take anywhere from a few weeks to a few months for the dog to start to feel comfortable and safe with you and adjust to the new routine.

I have two dogs that I train in a variety of activities, and neither of them has much in the way of toy or tug drive but will do anything for food, so that's what I generally work with.

For now, I would just be letting this nice boy get adjusted to his new living situation, work on household manners, introduce him to marker training, and just take your time on introducing him to the scent work. Nice and easy!

Thanks for the feedback ladies.. Yes two weeks and sometimes more sounds about right.. Yesterday he started to show some spunk but I had to get real animated to keep him in the game.. Hmm using food motivation, will have to look into this one.. I started in with marker training almost from day one.. Course its all new to me, already seeing why Ed says its simple but its not easy.. Still looking for getting him to show me he uderstands that its him turning me on and activating me.. He's working for it but I dont sense that he's really trying to activate me by pushing on me with animation. Might come back to his not really trusting and being bonded yet.. More like I dont have a good flow going yet myself.. I keep saying 'good' instead of 'yes' were I want 'yes' for the you can break signal and to build drive through the chase the hand game.. Been. Getting into a few of Michael Ellis DVD's building quite the library I am. :-)

So again Thank You for all your feedback. Have a meeting with my buddy on Wed who just happens to be one of the top trainers of Bedbug and scent detection dogs in the Los Angeles area.. I'll go over some of this when I see him then.

You can follow along and see how we are doing with some of my post. Been posting a lot of Pongo post as of late, seems I have a serious case of dog on the brain, here is one of them here..

https://plus.google.com/+MarkFerrasci/posts/D1xgbmJpRyJ

Ttyl :-)

Thanks for the feedback ladies.. Yes two weeks and sometimes more sounds about right.. Yesterday he started to show some spunk but I had to get real animated to keep him in the game.. Hmm using food motivation, will have to look into this one.. I started in with marker training almost from day one.. Course its all new to me, already seeing why Ed says its simple but its not easy.. Still looking for getting him to show me he uderstands that its him turning me on and activating me.. He's working for it but I dont sense that he's really trying to activate me by pushing on me with animation. Might come back to his not really trusting and being bonded yet.. More like I dont have a good flow going yet myself.. I keep saying 'good' instead of 'yes' were I want 'yes' for the you can break signal and to build drive through the chase the hand game.. Been. Getting into a few of Michael Ellis DVD's building quite the library I am. :-)

So again Thank You for all your feedback. Have a meeting with my buddy on Wed who just happens to be one of the top trainers of Bedbug and scent detection dogs in the Los Angeles area.. I'll go over some of this when I see him then.

You can follow along and see how we are doing with some of my post. Been posting a lot of Pongo post as of late, seems I have a serious case of dog on the brain, here is one of them here..

https://plus.google.com/+MarkFerrasci/posts/D1xgbmJpRyJ

Ttyl :-)

Thanks for the feedback ladies.. Yes two weeks and sometimes more sounds about right.. Yesterday he started to show some spunk but I had to get real animated to keep him in the game.. Hmm using food motivation, will have to look into this one.. I started in with marker training almost from day one.. Course its all new to me, already seeing why Ed says its simple but its not easy.. Still looking for getting him to show me he uderstands that its him turning me on and activating me.. He's working for it but I dont sense that he's really trying to activate me by pushing on me with animation. Might come back to his not really trusting and being bonded yet.. More like I dont have a good flow going yet myself.. I keep saying 'good' instead of 'yes' were I want 'yes' for the you can break signal and to build drive through the chase the hand game.. Been. Getting into a few of Michael Ellis DVD's building quite the library I am. :-)

So again Thank You for all your feedback. Have a meeting with my buddy on Wed who just happens to be one of the top trainers of Bedbug and scent detection dogs in the Los Angeles area.. I'll go over some of this when I see him then.

You can follow along and see how we are doing with some of my post. Been posting a lot of Pongo post as of late, seems I have a serious case of dog on the brain, here is one of them here..

https://plus.google.com/+MarkFerrasci/posts/D1xgbmJpRyJ

Ttyl :-)