iknow we all abit of topic here
but bradley - ijust have to add that the target (ball) oddor that consintrate at the holes such as footsteps is not false as long of course its realy the target scent.
to creat agood in snow search dog you shold teach him to hold that scant and folow it to the target.
in explosives search for example you want him to give indication in the second that he smell it.
in narc search on the other hand you usally need him to folow the scent to the exact point of the target.
but never treat atarget scent as "false target" and make your dog leave it.

yoku ithink that your signeture photo says it all on the subject.

sandy look at that puppy wow... is he buitifull...

sefi.s
israel

I'm so glad you weighed in on the subject, Sefi. Was figuring you would come along soon I love your signature picture, sending out on a search...it's very cool!

Regarding Lear, thanks He got big and beautiful, and his shiny fur I attribute to his raw diet and salmon oil.

Hre is a link to a nice tracking site being developed:
http://www.schutzhundtracking.com/

Thanks Brad, I went through some of the recent explosives search threads and found some excellent advice that Sefi gave out!


Sefi, thanks so much for your help (past and present!). I will work my pup with a larger scent target so that he can succeed in his snow searches ) You posted that advice a while back but I didn't see it until now.

Should I put a strong scent on my tracking object(s) in the beginning of training? My dog is only a pet, so I don't care what the scent is. I only want to teach him to find his toys in the snow.
What would you recommend?

Sandy, Lear is indeed looking beautiful.

WHY HAVEN'T YOU POSTED MORE RECENT PICTURES OF HIM IN YOUR PHOTOBUCKET GALLERY?!?!

I think he's unbelievably cute... especially as a little baby. This is my favourite pic of his and this one too.

What a wonderful and stunning looking puppy. There's no excuse not to be posting more pics (and videos) of him in your gallery ) hehe

just for it will be clear the search that i refer to here and the search that ireferd in the bomb detection forum is for detection dog searchs (for explosives, drag humans etc...) not for tracking on footsteps.


yoku im glad imanaged to help.
the basic idea is to give the dog the skills to find scent and to folow it above on and in the snow.

you use abigger toy (such as larger ball) with more scent for engener sucsess first of all it make the fisycal contact much easier and second it creat more aromatic molekols for the dog to detect and folow so the chance the dog will find scent and give up is decreasing.
the idea is more molekoles of the toy and not other strong scent on the toy.

if you want the dog to find other things than hes toy you should add that scent to the toy or very near the toy in much nuteral, easy and familier serface to search in.
iwhould start from the best location for your dog to search in for that perpass not from the snow field.

if im not clear or if you need extra help on that fell free to ask or contact me.

sefi.s

israel

Hi Sefi,

Glad to hear from you. I see what you are saying about the collected scent not being false. Out of curiosity, what methods do you use to teach the dog to hold the scent once they have it? Is a marker benefical for this? And, more importantly, do you start this on leash?

I don't make the dog leave the scent I am training on, I think "false target" is more a matter of my lack of proper terminology. What I was trying to get at is that the odor is correct just not the spot she was looking in. Generally I will let her figure it out for herself; and if she leaves the scent I just wait it out until she makes her way back to it. Is this not correct..? For the most part I don't really give the dog any feedback at all until I see an obvious behavior change (i.e. her head and body whip around in the direction the scent cone is coming from).

What I am trying to do, other than the obvious, is teach the dog to work out difficult situations on her own. If we ever wind up doing a real live search she won't have me to lean on and I will need her to have the ability and the confidence in that ability to do a proper job. But having said that I do want to hone my trainig to be the best team we possibly can.

hi bradley,

im happy to hear that imiss understood you.

im remining that we way of topic and of forum topic here couse (ireapet so that no one will be misslead here) WE DONT TALK ABOUT TRACKING OR SPORT TRACKING HERE.

isugest that if we need to talk it farther than that will do it on bomb detection forum on the thread you open while ago.
it will be my last post in that topic about the issue

about your question when adog is on the target scent or even visual and cant reach it we call here (in free translation) " persistence on target" alot of dogsmans confuse between persistance in the search and persistence on the target.

persistence on the search means just what we talked about in the endurance thread the persistence the dog show in the search intensity with out no sensor contact with the target.
iwant expand about it here.

persistance on the target is when the dog has asensory contact (for example: smell, visual view fell it etc..) with the target but cant reach it or point the exact location of it.

the both kind of persistences can afect one another but they are not the same thing.
both of tham need devlopment from the base in basic graduall groundwork.

when the dog search for his toy with out finding it it show persistence in the search.

when the toy is under let say aboard and the dog amell the toy and scratch and dig under the board to reach it with out let it go he show basic persistence on the target.

in later stages the presistence on the target will be shown by adog that sniff abit of scent and grab on to it with out leting it go untill he find the scent source.

theres alot of ways to build persistence on the target you just have to start from zero imean like the toy and the board.
encourage the dog is great but you should encorage him also for doing agood search or recall randomly...

just start hiding the toy in hard to get spots one that the dog will surly dtetect but will have to face some work to get like moving aferniture or dig in the ground.

never make asituation when your dog hade contact with the toy and gave up or search another way to get it...

the best start is to use an obsticule you can controll like aboard that tie to astring in its end that way you can be sure that your dog will get to the toy at his pick and not before.

you should expect the dog will get abit better from time to time but not to fast.

another nice trick im doing mostly with puppys is to take aspot like ahole of ahose in the ground or depression in awall and scracth some peaces of his toy upon it ilet the pupp find it and when he try to get the toy (that is not there) enuagh time and his nose and eyes point to the toy where about itoss the toy to point of the scent. you should watch out that the tiny peaces of toy wont spread farther than the point couse of the dog reaction and confuse him.

when you do this training with an trained explisives dog you should be very carfull that the dog will know the defrence between atoy search and explosives search and will know when to mark passive or half passive and when he should try to reach the target.

iusally try to get that stage before the imprints starts.

Hi Sefi,

I agree we've gotten way off topic here. I will start a new thread in the EDD section titled, Persistance on the Target.

And you didn't misunderstand me Sefi, it was my fault for misrepresenting my terminology.