Water Search Practice

Phoenix (aka stinker) had her first practice on the water on Saturday for cadaver. The object is to see if/how the dog will alert on cadaver below the surface, and reward the dog for said alert, or encourage an alert. Phoenix's actions sort of negated the possibility of really checking it out....we were coming up on the scent, (and of course, not being a dog, I couldn't tell for sure if she was beginning to scent..) when she put her feet up on the edge and her nose down to the water. I began to say "good girl" when she went in. With a great splash!!  So then there was the problem of getting her back in the boat, (we were a ways off the shore....) and she had a harness on that was a bit too big, and she had her leash on, so the first thing to do was to undo the leash, so that she wouldn't become tangled in the leash. Then we basically just took the boat to shore, stopping any time she got near the trolling motor....and she followed, by swimming around and around the boat and having the time of her life!  When we got to where she could touch bottom, we gave her a hefty lift over the edge of the boat and back into the boat! Where she proudly shook all over and looked smug. So then we continued, I am pretty certain she was scenting, and I encouraged an alert..pushing at me with her paw.....and she got her cookie....and then we went on to the shore practice. The shore practice consisted of three hides, each one about a foot off shore. She was on leash...and I walked her along the shore, and she went down right off the bat on the first one, bit at the water, then proceeded to ROLL in the water, right at the edge...OMG did she STINK!!!!

My team members tell me she has invented a new alert: the drop and roll.

When I drove home I carried some "dead stuff" back with me in the van, in a tightly closed container. I thought perhaps the awful smell was the dead stuff....but oh, no, it was Feeny, the STINKER!

Our Search dog team had our meeting before the practice. We are starting a new fund raising shop, at Zazzle.com. will let you know the details when i get it going..

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More Search Dog Stuff..Cadaver and Alerting

It's been awhile since I lived up to my promise to write daily about Phoenix and her training. We have been progressing and I have been remiss in detailing the accounts of some of her successes and failures along the way. So I will start with a SUCCESS story.

To begin with, it has become apparent that she MUST do a strong alert in the boat. Preparatory to this effort, I have been working with her to get her to "talk to me", and I use the words "tell me LOUD" to get her to bark. This is easy to accomplish because she lovers for me to throw her stuffy for her, especially at that time of day just before we all go to bed, when I am sitting back and watching tv, she will go get her stuffy and push it into my lap, then wait for me to throw it. If I hold her stuffy up and "start" to throw it, she gets excited and she will "woof" impatiently. thus began the training for the bark alert. This is how the training began. Now she will "tell me loud" before she eats, before she goes outside, actually most any time I aske her. and once she "tells me" then she gets whatever it is that she is wanting.

From that point, we progressed to the search for cadaver and getting a treat when she finds. Before she gets her treat, she must "tell me loud". Consequently, she is BEGINNING to make an automatic alert, a sit, face me, and "woof" when she finds the cadaver!! We are getting there!!

Now for a "failure". Her desire to come to me in the field is not as great as her desire to continue investigating whatever it is that sh is interested in at the time. And she has a pretty short attention span. Especially when it comes to water, and swimming in it. The only good thing there is to say is that at least, after she is done with her swim, she will at least continue searching. So I need to do two things...pump up her focus on the search to the point that she will not bother with a swim along the way, and make sure that if she DOES get distracted, she will go back to the searching in the end.

We have just begun her THIRD obedience class. One of the big things we are going to be working on this week, well, actually two things: looking at me when I say her name, and coming to me when I encourage her to come, but WITHOUT using the actual word "come". So I am off, to the training.

Keep your nose in the wind, and your tail wagging....