Hi everybody,
I've read/watched in all my Courses/Dvds we should never release a dog from a stay from distance, we should always come back to him to give the rel.com. Until now I've always followed that rule.

But in between I wonder if this is really absolutely necessary. I do understand it as long as a dog still has to solidify his stays and of course always taking in account o the situation, distractions etc;

Though if those capacities are given, do I really have to stick to that rule under all circumstances? It seems that in many dogsports or similar forms of training this isn't possible. The dog has to be trained to keep his stay and break it even if the rel.com comes out of quite a distance.

P.S. In my case this would be tried only within the backyard. On walks they're always on-leash. But even if they're on-leash what error I'd commit if I'd call them out of a stay from far?

By way of personal interaction with my mutts, I do it both ways.

If i am doing some work that, in my opinion, might endanger a dog that is accompanying me, or if the immediate presence of the dog might be a distraction, I down the dog some distance away. When I am finished, I release the dog to come to me.

If I am working with the dog in a repetitive or training session, I am more likely to directly approve and release following compliance.

It depends on your objectives. If you are showing, you train to specifications. If you are working for a more companion oriented relationship, you train in preparation for stuff that could happen.

In essence, you train for your objectives, in my world. I work with my dogs thinking of what will enable me to protect them from dangerous situations in the first instance.

But what do I know?

In agility, we release from a distance. In most of my real life scenarios, I release from a distance. I may release for them to come to me, or to retrieve something to bring to me, or even to go someplace else like their crate.

When training the behavior - to make it sticky, I only released the dog when I returned to it. That helps solidify the command. Once they knew they don’t break it until I tell them they can, then it’s not as important to release next to the dog.

Training dvds are great, but take what you learn and adapt it to your life. I worked a Leerburg for well over a decade, and I customized the training methods that I learned to fit my life and my dogs. My life, my needs, my dogs are not the same as Ed or Cindy or Michael. There are no hard and fast rules in dog training because each dog and trainer and situation are different.

The most important thing is to have fun with the dog.

My opinion of course!

What Mike said.

When training I go to the dog more then I call it to me but it doesn't happen enough in real life to concern me as long as my dog is solid to my expectations..that are always very high.

For sure it's situational.

Thanks Mike, Kelly and Bob. That all sounds exactly like I'd wish to have it. That means I can start to release them gradually from a distance without concern to teach them sthg wrong. They have IMO very solid stays provided I adapt my expectations to the momentary situation.They even keep the stays with the most delicious bone in front of their noses. (Very proud about this, though I know self-praise stinks.)

I like to hide myself and they have to seek me. So I of course can't go back to them and release. I always had someone near them to give them the TM, which seems to me a bit critical. Always thought the TM should come from me. Or can I go on playing hide and seek that way (until they're used to a longer distance) provided it's me who gives them the reward?

If you have someone else give them the go find command make sue the dog is always rewarded when it does make the find.

If the dog your sending has a strong drive for a ball, Kong, tug, etc then have a person run away in sight of the dog,

Send the dog and the person hiding rewards the dog when it finds that person.

This is pretty much how we taught the green dogs when I was involved in SAR.

Don't make the "find" to difficult in the beginning because not all dogs have a strong drive to continue a search if it isn't successful in the early training.

That "drive" to keep looking is what makes the difference between a good search dog and a family pet just having fun but those "family pets" can sometimes surprise you.

No, I didn't make it difficult. I started with food and put some pieces on spots where they could see me hiding it. Once they knew the command "Seek", I began to hide the food on more unusual spots, but still where they could observe me hiding and later on searched "blind".

But I think, this wasn't yet a real seeking, as they probably remembered the spots they had already found something.

Next step was seeking one, then a few more toys, which they know well and I added the smell of a sausage.

When I started to hide myself, I called them. But this was far too easy. That's why I needed Nilson to give them the com.

Apart from this my goal is to make them use their sense of smell better. When they seek me I still make it relatively easy, I hide underneath or on a table, behind a bush etc. When they find me I always rewarded with food.

But now I'm asking myself, if this is really necessary? Isn't the success of finding me and my joyful reaction already enough reward? Those beasts are too funny. At least for two of them I've got the impressio, ,it is a reward, because when they discover me they jump high up in the air and bark for a moment excitedly. and if they can they jump at me (which in other situations I don't allow), but in this joyfull moment yes. Wrong?

To find another person I haven't tried yet. Should I for doing this first teach them the name of that person and say e.g "Find Nilson!"? A great drive for following someone running away with a toy, they don't have. Except with Socks I could try this. It would be a good thing, I guess, because by playing like this they'd also learn to recognize the smell of that person. I guess, I can't smear every person first with sausage.

Sorry for the stupid questions. I know, dogs have an immense sense of smell, but I can't imagine how search dogs can find a missing person they haven't ever seen nor smelled before. Is it just a well trained sense for discovering a human or another being?

The "Find it" command is all that's needed as long as someone is there to reward the dog if finding people is your goal.

Finding one of their own toys of high value can be a reward in itself.

When we taught scent work we had the particular scent in one of 5-6 boxes along with their toy.

That can get a bit complicated because the object scent can leave residual scent in the box so you have to keep that box as the only one scented.

Hard to explain all this is such short messages but i know there are excellent scent work videos offered here at Leerburg.

Thens so much Bob. Sounds all very interesting and tempting. Though probably not easy at all. Experience will dhow. A video I've already ordered, but not recieved yet.

If you want the dog to find a specific person you will need that persons scent - this is like if a person is missing and you need the dog to track them. Other searches, like disaster search or avalanche rescue, the dogs learn a general human scent that they search for. There is literally tons of information out there on both types of search training.

Using yourself as a reward is perfectly acceptable - one of Toni’s favorite rewards was getting to jump on me.

Scent training can be very useful. I have worked with Toni on finding my scent on various articles, so when I lost my keys while riding, it made sense to have her go find them. She brought them back to me within 15 minutes.