David,

Start the drive building right away. You dont want to reward him for one scratch any more than you have to. I know you are in the school so start tomorrow. Before starting my dog in the school I spent a solid month putting a tennis ball under my boot and made him scratch hard for it. I did this sometimes 20 times a night or so. You can do this as soon as you get out with the dog and it takes no setup time, just find some grass and go to it. Good luck

Howard

Howard

Howard,

I have tried that under the foot thing some times he just puts his head down and tries to pull it out without much scratching. Should I tease him up with it like in the drive building DVD then instead of going to a sit or something fire it under my boot and see if I can get the scratch?? He has good drive not the best, but I want to bring it out. Can I do the towel under the foot?? Actually that will probaly just turn into a game of tug. It going to be tough with the hole in the ground. A whole 15 degrees out today. Ground it going to start to freeze. Oh well going to have to build those boxes. On the scratch boxes do you guys like the dog to see the toy?? The scratch box my trainer has is plexiglass on the top and my dog does a nice scratch when he can see it!

David,

The purpose of the ball under the boot is to build the alert. You cant expect him to be great right out of the chute. The second he scratches kick the ball out to build the drive. This teaches him that the toy will run when he scratches. Continue to do the drill but try to get a little more scratch out of him each time. Dont forget to reward sometimes after just a few scratches to change things up some. This should stop the biting and keep him focused because he never knows when the toy will run.

Howard

I have started my drive building this weekend. Not going very well. I don't see that great desire trying to get the ball under my foot. If I do the miss tug like in the drive building DVD he does show alot more drive. Should I be using the same toy I use for drugs..(towel) I quickly ordered the Narcotics DVD for some more help. Does anyone know if there is alot with the scratch boxes on the DVD??

The dog picks the reward. If he works better for the tug than the ball, why use anything else.

DFrost

What do you guys think is good for amount of excercises(hides) per day. I see my dog switch to barking and less scratching after about 10-12 hides. We have been doing about 15-17 per day. My dog is a barker inside the cruiser and I think he is wearing himself out. Just a thought. He seems tired on the last exercises and that is when the indication is more barking than scratching.

Sometimes it's not about how many hides you put out, but how long the dog works. A good training record will tell you, by odor, what the proficiency rate is. On a trained dog, length of search is also a concern. Some training days we may have 1 hide on 20 vehicles. I don't allow my handlers to know the location of the training aid, unless they are working on a specific problem. Training should be designed to replicate scenarios you encounter in real work. It should also be designed to replicate something that "might" happen. Unless you are extremely lucky, or are only called when drugs have already been found, you'll do many blank vehicles. Training should replicate that as well. In short (yeah I know I already missed that boat) once the dog has displayed a proficiency on all odors, then it's time to stretch them out. Less finds, more searching.

DFrost

david_s hello,
iagree absulotlly with david.c frost on the ammount of hides - its all matter on hides vs work lenghts.
but in your case imust add iwhould go astep back and work with the dog only on the scretch. and leave the searches aside.
than iwhould
meaning change hes adittue to "iwant iscratch" rather "iwant ibark".
when your dog have agood time of scratching on the same target iwhould give him to scratch after excise i.e (runing, jumps etc)
than iwhould go back to develop search.
iknow its abit har mentally to stop your searching progress but on the long run ibelive you gain time to end of program that way.
imight do abit of identefy between scratch boxes/ boards etc one
or two balnk and one positive for differentiation but very simple ones just for not creating cheating and false indiceitons.
sefi.s

I know this whole bark thing comes from building searches, when he learns that his voice opens the door. I was just wondering if fatigue could cause the switch. Early in the training day he is all scratches then later in the day (after lunch) the barks start.

sure it can cause that, thats why i think you should step back and move to only work on scratching with abit of search work.
your dog naturlly react to get things he wants should be use hes front legs.
iwonce had to change awhole team indication react the team was maid by operational dogs and handlers and non operantional (at they end of they training program) the non operationals had stop all training but differentiations (ihope its the right word) and indication training,
the other part of the team had to maintain some opretional missions so ihade to engage indication training with maintaining they operational abilety.
the first group learnd the new signals in 2 week and non of tham exept one didnt ever had problams.
the operational group change in response took about 2 amonths for perfect results and many of tham still got sparks of the old behaviors in frostaration situations and long hard operational works\ trainings for about half year.
ihave to mantion that it wasnt apro nor objective experiment couse the dog in group 2 was more old and hade work for more time with the old indication then the second group. but still iquiet convinced that the results where resembles if it whould have done in an equal terms.
ishould also pay attention to the kind of hiding if there any defrences, most dogs tend to bark on high hiding and scratch for deep ones. if so iwhere do as isaid than train each kind of hiding separately again in an sterile environment at first.
iknow its hard mantaly but one of the five importent things ilearnd in dog training is to step back to basic when you stuck.