gidday this is my first post on the site and i would be grateful for any help in relation to pad training.
I work for a correctional centre in australia and have been asked to train an 18 month old beagle x as a pad this dog would only be used to screen visitors entering the facility
ie no accomadation/veh etc my department initialy would not
pay for me to attend a structured pad course so ive started
to train him myself im in
very early stages of scent recon. My dillema is that my department is now willing to send me away on course but at
a very minimal cost to them. I have been offered the
oppurtunity to attend a course with a police service here in aust free of charge, however there training is based on a food reward system of which i know very little about, this department states they have a very good sucsess rate with this method some thoughts on this method would be appreciated
As i stated my dog will only be used to screen people
any thoughts thanks ron.

What is a pad dog? What exact detection dicipline are you doing? If I can understand what you are trying to do, I will give ya whatever help I can.

passive alert dog.

A food reward system is really bad way to train a detector dog. Its really OLD school. The US military tried if for years before they realized there are much better ways to train. Dont get sucked into this nethod of training. Its ineffective.

Sounds like your department is as cheap as many law enforcment agencies in this country.

You have a hard road to go.

Would a food reward system work for a dog that had no prey drive for a ball/toy? What would be an alternative? Change dogs?

thanks for your thoughts ref food reward training. Ed you state there are better training methods and imm sure your right but could this type of training be utilised on a dog to dog basis and be successful on individual animals.I do know there are some departments in your country that are using a food based reward for explosive detection. Like i said i have been offered a course FREE OF CHARGE and we have been fighting for years for the oppurtunity to get our handlers away on structured courses, could someone please give me some examples were this training might fall down
or basically what makes it a bad method.
thanking you again RON

Just for a different perspective relative food reward. Understanding that the tasks are different, but it is behavior control, SeaWorld, circus acts, most "animal acts" you see are conducted using a food reward system. Most animals trained to perform certain tasks in laboratories are also trained on food reward. One federal agency, still trains the majority of their dogs using a food reward system. Food can be a very powerful motivator, when it is handled properly. Although I've never been a big fan of using food reward, I have, and other than feeding the dog rather than playing with a toy, there is virtually no difference in the required behaviors and/or the proficiency rate attained. The dogs are no more prone to be attentive to food, nor do they have a higher percentage of false responses, nor is the drive any different from that of more "traditionally" trained dogs. Selection of prospective dogs is not all that different than used for selecting dogs with a high retrieve drive, except of course, retrieve is not usually tested. The problems the military had with food reward was not the reward itself, but more of a predetermined failure due to the prejudice of the trainers and handlers.

DFrost

david thanks mate but im still in the dark here.
Can someone tell me what problems i will encounter whilst working and training a dog using this method ,imean this training obviously works but isnt prefered i accept that
id just like to know why thanks RON

Ron, I can't speak for others. I will say the complaints I've heard most have been, less drive, more false responses and more attention to food distractors when training and working. I've not found any of these complaints to hold true. Personally, I've always felt it was just a persons aversion to using food. I have to admit, I don't like it either, but as stated, have used it in both a laboratory and actualy usage and have not seen these problems. But to each their own.

DFrost

I dont understand what type of scent work you are asking about. Is it narcotics, bomb, human scent. But along the lines of using food. I am also a believer that food should not be used as a reward. I however do use food in the first stage of teaching my dogs to track.

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