thank you for your quick response. I have been working boxes with odor and started with assisted reponses and it quickly moved to unassisted responses with a little scratch here and there but not too bad. What kind of other problems do you suspect I could have in the change over?

My experience has been a little different. Two dogs with a minimal amount of work in aggressive responce. Two additional dogs with no exposure to either type of response. All were started passive at the same time. I have not been able to completely eliminate a scratch from the two dogs that had aggressive response exposure. What typically happens is one scratch and then a sit. This is typically with low hides. High hides go off without a hitch (not Scratch). We have done praise offs and then redirected the dog and we get a clean sit but with the initial find about 50 percent of the time we get a scratch sit. Fortunately we are talking about narcotics. Obviously this is not acceptable in bomb detection.

In respect to the drive of the dog don't assume that a dog would be a better passive responder because he is not an active scratcher. In my mind scratching is a much more natural responce to the desire to get to the prey. Dogs are much more inclined to scratch than sit.

Kevin, I'd really like to pick your brain as I am taking on four more K-9 teams who are aggressive alert. I had pretty much resigned myself to the fact that is what they will be. However, if I can make the change I may go for it.

Kevin, can you explain the theory of why you start aggressive then switch? I have a mal that I wanted to go passive, but he is extremely high drive, and has a lot of "nervous energy" and sits when he does not know what else to do. He does not really relax and search, he is stuck wide open. The problem is he sits all the time, especially when I stop. I have tried more open area hunt, but I decided to just go aggressive alert. How do you refine the locking up on the odor? Do you use a focus command?

First lets begin at the beginning.
The indication is a flushing behavior or which the digging and chewing is often quite natural, but we can also teach a stare and or a sit, and or a down. I guess we could teach about any behavior really.
The second thing is to understand that, at least for the foundation and through the building and settling into the indication, I use a system that the dog interprets as an extension of hunting. It obtains the prey and kills it. The dog does not receive a reward from the handler, it flushes its prey. The one real consistency of the prey is that it smells of the assigned substance.
To keep the dog in close to the source it initially is allowed to dig the item out. Depending on the dog and its history this can go on through many stages.
I have a hard time giving a formula on when I move to a different response.
To help the dog I often start this change by backing up training and using the prey under a metal milk crate....high tech stuff here....and when the dog gives up trying to dig and stares it gets the toy. Quickly this changes to the dog taking a position and focusing on the prey object. The focus is never never left out.
It makes me ill to see dogs looking at their handlers, looking away from the find, as this leads all too often to false indications. They just can't fake focus so easily.
This help at all???

How rock solid does the dog have to be to switch from primary hides? I started out doing primary hides, and was unfortunately talked into removing the reward and holding it myself <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/frown.gif" alt="" /> . This lead to the dog looking at me like you said. This also lead to her not committing right away to the odor. I am now back tracking, and wearing ear plugs when stupid people talk.

Lynn.... If you want that focus back, there is no reason you can't go back to primary rewards with your dog.

Absolutely,, I dont understand why people are in such a hurry to get a way from it.

I think think part of the problem David is the reluctance to "go back to basics" when we begin to see behaviors we don't like in our dogs. I see officers all the time who arn't getting good indication from their dogs on drug searches who won't go back to primary rewards because they are "beyond that" in their training.

In my narc boxes I have a host of pvc pipes and tugs on ropes that I use as primary rewards. I often put my dog back on scratch boxes to keep him focused on the reward coming from the source.