ok my pup name is kairi "ki `ree" just so i dont have to refer to her as my pup.
i have been working with kairi on sar work games such as "come find me" and "wheres the treat"also which hand is the treat in " she does these flawless now she never wonders far from the scent maybe 3 feet tops
what other games is there. any games would be great help

p.s she will be 13 weeks sunday

Are you training her for SAR? If you were I would try and change up the come and find me game to come and find other people, especially children. If she likes to play tug or fetch a ball/toy you can really motivate with the prey drive. Since she is young, keep the challenges simple, but do increase the level of difficulty. I guess I would want to more about what your use is for the dog. Is this so she stays around you? Is it for SAR or other? Depending on the use there are different exercises that you could practice.

best...Chet

this will be for SaR when she is older. i will get my little breothers to play "come find me" with her this weekend and mybe thier friends next weekend (if all goes well)

and u said thorugh prey drive are u saying when a find accures to play tug with her and praise and treat please define that a bit more if u could im new to this world ,but would love to leave my dent on it .

i know i should buy videos (its on my to do list) butmoney is tight at the moment and in 2 paychecks every thing will be OK again

Hi Trey,

There are several things that you can do with her.

Hide toys for her in the house or in the backyard and have her hunt for them. Make the problems easy at first. Show her the toy, lock her out of a room, put the toy in a corner somewhere in the room that she's locked out of, open the door and let her find the toy. Make it more challenging as she figures out the game.

What are you going to have her do for her indication? Bark at you, bark at the subject, jump on you, etc. Decide what her indication is going to be and start teaching/training that separately. I started teaching my girl to bark at me at when I brought her home at 9 and a half weeks.

Socialize the snot out of her. Take her everywhere that you can and make certain that she has positive experiences.

Get her used to traveling in the car and staying in the crate.

Work on her agility skills. Take her for walks in the forest where she needs to navigate over and around fallen trees. Even really tall grass is challenging for a puppy. If you have access to agility equipment you can start her on the lower heights to ensure that she doesn't do any damage to herself.

Work on obedience...every day...a couple of times a day! She will need an extremely reliable recall if you're going to teach the refind. Do restrained recalls. Call her from interesting things but, only when you can enforce it! Start with lower level distractions and work your way up to higher distractions. Work on eye contact as well. You most likely will have to pass some sort of obedience test and having good eye contact will help you with that.

Have you decided on a reward system? Tug and playing fetch are both good. Start building drive by playing with her with her "special" toy and ending play when she's excited and wants more. Have her play with her special toy with other people as well. It's the subject that she finds who should be rewarding her for the find when she starts finding people other than you.

Scent work is the easy part of the equation for the dog. Work on the other required skills so that you have a solid foundation.

Hope that helps!

One more thing. LET HER BE A PUPPY!!!! She needs to explore and learn work away from you as well as following direction from you.

Concetrating on short motivational problems for the first year is the way to go.

Natalie
http://alikamalinois.tripod.com

Natalie mentions some helpful ideas. Definitly work on rewarding her with a toy, tug, ball when she finds someone. At her age you could use a burlap sack untill she gets the idea. Then transition to a tug. Make sure your reading her when she tracks. Praise her by verbal praise when she smells the track. Make sure you know where the track is. Most people that are going to be lost are usually children, hunters and hikers. Try to train with those people in mind.
As your training increases in difficulty, put a scent article in a zip lock bag that belongs to the person your tracking. just before you start to track open the bag to give her a wif. Eventually she'll make the conection. Have your track layer use engineer tape often along the track so you know where they went. Don't allow her to get way off the track. stand still and hold the line untill she gets back on track. Tie the engineer tape to trees, tall grass, bushes etc. Also work on the indicator like natalie mentions. Make a barking box. Basically a box out of ply-wood. the top opens up and the helper/track layer would reward dog up for a bark. initally it might be a frustration sound. just keep her frustrated. The person in the box can make noises, and you can try and load her verbal so that she barks, or at least makes a sound. In the beginning she can watch someone run to the box (like you) some else can hold her, then release her. she'll run to the box, and again hopefully get frustrated and bark or at least makes a noise. Make sure she gets to tug/play when you pop out.
One last exercise, hide some one under a tarp, camoflage the tarp with sticks, grass, surounding stuff. when she seems to get indicate that someone is under the tarp have them come out and give her the reward. Leerburg videos for tracking are really good. Get them.

best chet

Trey, are you already on a SAR team?

If not, most require that you obtain certifications (on you, like NASAR SAR II etc) and that you be a team member for awhile before you can train a dog with them...

Definitely agree with Natalie.