A new dog on our unit is having problems open searching in woods. The dog is a very good searcher in buildings and other open areas, but if he is in a woods he is easily distracted.

The dog is a 14 month old GSD/ROTTI cross, he is developing well in all areas apart from this woods searching. He has quite good drive, and is interested in his ball, but not as much as the GSD'S. He is currently at the end of week 8 of a 13 week general purpose police dog course.

The dog is at the stage of training where he still sees the criminal run off into the woods with his toy reward. whilst he is set up for the search by the handler the dog shows good drive and is barking at the fleeing criminal. The dog initially bursts out but stops at the first interesting smell and refuses to get on. we have tried going back on lead, but as soon as he goes back off lead he reverts back to sniffing any distraction.

Peopole i have spoken to say that this is the rotti traits coming out of the dog.

Any advice please on how to correct this or any similar experiences. Thanks.

I would not buy into the person saying this is a Rottie trait. If the dog has been properly selected for the work than this is just a training issue. You mentioned the person runs off into the woods with the ball and hides. I would recommend switching over to rewarding with a bite sleeve rather than a ball. Start with short sends on sight into the woods and progress from there. The dog has most likely found odors and the like in the woods that are more motivating than the hunt for the ball and changed interests. Keep in ming the dog is still very young and immature. Polie Dog courses like the dog is enrolled in sometimes push dogs to fast to get them finished by course completion. You cannot really put a time limit like that on every dog especially at that age.

This is not a rottie trait,it is usually bad training due to the dog being pushed beyond its learning ability,Rotties are not GSDs and need a different approach,it needs a more patient approach as they are slow learners but as has already been said it could be down to the selection of the dog not being right.
The approach to take is to reduce the distance between the decoy and the dog and gradually increase it,the dog will then not have to work so hard in the early stages to get his reward.
Paul

The answers to this might be various.
The dog is very young for a full blown PSD course. yet, the open area searching is motivated by a ball (this is a whole other questions about motivating a dog that is soon to be in service with a toy), so there shouldn't be too much stress on a proper dog.

I can gice you a discription of how I do PSD's.
First I almost always use dog 18months and older. Special circumstances may cause me to change that a bit, such as a department with a well established program that collectively understands that a basic PSD course with a youngster is just license to begin and they will have to train and be patient for the dog to mature.
Searching is started as windscenting. Multiple repetitions where suspect initially confronts the police dog through body language when found then retreats when the dog responds.
At the same time away from deployemnt type work the dog learns detaining in a traditional fashion (Bark and Guard) and then learns to do a directed search on a flat field with blinds then to a parking lot doing it with cars. this stage usually involved multiple decoys, eventually weaning down to one or two.
B&G is maintained throughout this process.
Once this looks good we move to open field searches.
For search and rescue dogs the system is the same except that the dogs are barking for their toy.
Problem solving is done by returning to foundations.
If the training doesn't seem like it is taking such logical steps then maybe you need to step back and build foundations one step at a time. Or, consider that the dog is either too young and continued training will only hurt the dog or that the dog isn't suited for the work.
Breed differences tend to be excuses for poor performance.

In SAR we sometimes run into this with imature dogs. Shorten up the distance the dog has to run to find the victim/badguy. Our dogs all work for the kong on a rope but some young ones work better initially with food. Not sure how that would work in yout situation. It's also possible the dog has a weak hunt drive once the victim/badguy is out of sight.