My current PSD is a dual purpose patrol and EDD for almost three years now. During the initial bomb training he was exposed to large amount (up to 10 pounds) of explosives as well as smaller amounts. He did a great job and completed the school with an average find rate of 98%.
Since the school I have been training with aids obtained from the local Sheriff's EOD unit. I was not alotted much explosives..3 oz c4, 10 ft det chord etc.. Last week I was training with a neighboring agency who had aquired a large amount of explosives and I figured my partner would have no problems with the extra odor. Boy was I wrong! Out of 6 hides I only recieved one positive alert and one behavoir change. I made no excuses and took the criticism from the other agency's K9 seargent without protest.
I have heard of hunting dogs losing game when the game stops for a time then runs off again because so much odor is left in one spot. I have also seen drug dogs miss alot of dope because of the amount present although my drug dog never had this problem.
I bring this up because, although it may be common knowledge that this can occur, you guys working an EDD should expose your dog to greater amounts of explosives everytime you can. After all, I dont much care if I miss alot of dope, but things that go bang...I care.
The purchase of the training aids we need are currently in the works so I am confident my partner will be back on track soon. Has anyone else out there run into this same problem?

Even with an sensory overload, there should have been a change of behavior. Sensory overload, as you know, is caused by the dog being unable to detect a difference in the level of the odor, therefore it is unable to detect source. They still will detect odor however. As you said though, it can be a problem with both drug and explosives detection. We are fortunate to have adequate stock on hand, with an added benefit of a very friendly explosives company that notifies us when a large shipment is being transported. They usually give us enough time to get some dogs together and allow us to work the area. We've worked loads as large as 2800 pounds.

DFrost

Yep it happens occaionally. Especially when you're bringing your dog straight into the scent cone and not working from no odor to odor.
Some suggestions though. Go find your local blaster. ask him if you can work his truck, and when he gets large amounts of various explosives for different jobs have him give you a call. Most of the time these guys are happy to accomodate you for the couple minutes it takes to work the case of boosters they ordered or the truck of ANFO that is at their site.
It is hard to convince your agencies that you really do need to expose your dog to multiple pounds of substance. this is true for both narcs and EDD. But there are a few ways. Locally if one of the guys gets a large load on the interstate we'll try to get other dogs on the vehicle once they have located the substance. That way we're not interfering or clouding the issues on a investigation but get the chance to expose our dogs to large amounts. Sometimes we arrange to check out large quantities briefly from evidence for training. Fortunatly large quantities aren't uncommon here so we're able to do this frequently enough.

The first time I was able to work my dog in a training situation with a large amount of , I experienced this. He gave the sign of being in odor but the confusion started to set in when he could not take it to source because of the overpowering amount of odor.

I've ran into this same thing with cadaver dogs. Our SAR team went to the Body Farm in Knoxville Tenn last year. It was amaizing how some really good dogs freaked out when exposed to 40+ bodies in a 3 acre area. Almost all the young dogs had problems. It was a great opportunity for us and the dogs.

I was with Bob at the farm and have a fairly experienced dog. She did not give a trained alert, but was definatly into the odor and had signifigant behavior changes.

My friends drug dog she use to work worked such small odors that when she started hitting on seeds in individual cells the higher ups requested that they use more odor, because they would search all day and come up with seeds.

David,
I agree that there should have been a behaviour change on every problem. At first I thought it was just me that had missed the changed because of being inattentive but when it was all said and done with I drilled the seargent and other three handlers present to9 be honest with me if I missed the change. All said that they failed to see a change as well, and they knew where the bombs were planted.

I will take some heat though, because after missing two aids I started to get disgusted and I believe the dog felt my disatisfaction and lost his focus.

The local AFB handlers have access to large amounts so I will be coordinating with them again to help me out as well until our stock comes in. No offense, but glad to hear I'm not the only one with this problem.

Howard,

Problems such as this are the reason we train and just as important, document that training. Good training, not just going through the motions identifies problems. Once a problem in identified it's usually pretty easy to see what we need to do to correct a problem. I've always instilled in my handlers that: if you don't know what your dog can NOT do, you'll never know what he can do. I'm sure all will work out for you, just keep on training.

DFrost

David, I agree. As you know, I will not put this thing on the back burner to be fixed whenever. I am already on top of it because I am unable to accept shoddy performance even though most of it is my fault. I also am impatient when it comes to fixing easy problems so I dont like to mess around and allow things to get worse. Thanks for the support.