Inaccessible Hides Seminar (1)

Over the weekend we went to Vancouver to attend the "Inaccessible Hides: The Search for Elusive Source" seminar, presented by Barbara Schwerdt.  It was great.  I'd been to her converging odor seminar and it was okay, but  not great.  We discussed the difference - in a large part its because its easy and obvious how to set up training for inaccessible hides.  Whereas for converging odor, sometimes what you think will be converging isn't and vice versa - so you can't count on seeing the clear progression in the dogs.

So, what are Inaccessible Hides?  
Odor that's inaccessible because its "contained" or "out of reach".  Can it be both?  -- YES!

• Contained in – drawers, crates, a pallet, appliance, cabinet, plastic egg, inside vehicle bumper, electrical switch plate
• Out of Reach -- high, low, deep, on top of stack of pallets, center under dolly, inside child's desk, on a shelf, in a breaker box, far under vehicle

What is the difference between "bracketing" and "detailing"?

• Bracketing – The dog can't get to odor source and goes back and fourth, ping-ponging on either side or multiple sides of nearest place to inaccessible hide. 
• Detailing – Dog moves in and out of scent cone, analyzing concentration and odor quality to move nearer to source. 

Barbara reiterated that its common to many dogs to move in and out of odor, seemingly leaving odor and the search (as if distracted), as part of their search technique.  She sees this a lot with hunting breeds, possibly related to "quartering"; though other breeds do it too.  Gimme does this, most noticeble with vehicles, but probably always.  This has been a recurring disagreement between Joyce and I.  Because she remembers Gimme being distracted and leaving vehicles in her early searches, she views every time she moves away from the vehicles in that light.  To me the difference between distraction and Gimme's  searching technique is that she turns back before she comes to the end of the leash or before I encourage her to come back AND she doesn't go sniff some obvious distractor.

"What might be considered inaccessible for one scenario for one dog, may be accessible in another scenario or for another dog or another day."

Acceptable calls for trial purposes become much more flexible for inaccessible than for accessible hides.  Conditions vary so much as the day progresses, so there may be more than one perfectly valid place to indicate odor for an inaccessible hide.  Certifying official and judges predetermine acceptable limits of indication location.  Even though conditions may change during search, these limits must be adhered to for all competitors, for fairness.

Q:  When the hide is inaccessible, how does the handler know when to call "alert"?

• look for the dog to make a decision – relies on handler to read their dog's behavior
• if the dog was searching for a primary reinforcer they couldn't get to, such as a chunk of hotdog, what behavior would you see from the dog?  that's when you reward...

When do you start training inaccessible hides?

• when the dog is proven to be odor obedient
• when the dog has completed their NW1 title
• when the handler knows when to reward the dog
• the first biggest difference between NW1 and NW2 is stamina... so the dog should have it before moving on to inaccessible hide training

What symptoms will you see if you are doing too many inaccessible hides?  Fringing, too much handler dependence, the dog starts to offer other behavior and/or the dog is confused or gives up on search.

When setting up for inaccessible hide training always consider safety for both the dog and the handler and consider potential for property destruction.

When rewarding for inaccessible hides always put treat at odor and then bring down/over to dog, so you get their focus to where the odor actually is.

If the dog gets struck and you have to "present" an area to the dog to encourage searching... (should only happen on rare occasions)

• present low, high, then low, then high
• doing so routinely will teach the dog a pattern so that you can ensure you stop presenting high when the odor is low and would be next
• use a hand motion as if you were tossing treats

Remember, there are more than 4 corners in a room for a dog.  We humans only count the four physical corners of the walls.  Dogs "see" with their noses all the corners presented by furniture, closets, alcoves, windows and window seats, cabinets, steps and stair landings, etc.

Handlers influence their dog's movement with their own movement.  Whether you move in or out to get a specific result depends on the individual dog.

• is it crowding or support -- or -- is it pushing or pulling the dog
• our influence about how a dog moves in the space is underrated
• most dogs are easily crowded and pushed off odor, but some need the support
• you can move away to test whether the dog is "sticking" to odor
• you can move to an area to draw a dog into that area

"Paws on" versus "Pawing"

• there is a big difference between putting paws on and pawing
• putting paws on something to access a hide is not the same as pawing
• that being said, there is such a thing as too much paws on, especially repeatedly going vertical on a vehicle (see discussion about Gimme going vertical at the end of day 2)

When is Re-cueing appropriate?  When the dog is distracted, when dog is crittering and as a new cue after finding first hide.  Joyce tells us to never recue, because in a NW3 trial there might not be another hide.  That doesn't make sense to me because its equally possible there will be no hide in a clear room and we cue for that.

When is it appropriate to Re-start the search?  When search is not progressing or when handler is becoming emotional (probably because the search is not progressing <eg>).

More to follow... with videos of Gimme's searches...