We again started with blank searches - two of them. The second blank search was very tricksie... Then we then ended with two searches containing hides.
Exterior 1 search video - Gimme was happy to search and her enthusiasm stayed at about the same level. Partly I think it was because it was a large area. She didn't show any change of behavior, which was my only clue it was a blank search.
Vehicle 1 search video - We were told this was a blank vehicle search. We weren't told about the hide on the nearby building. The idea was to see if the dogs would be persistent, to get us to leave what we believed was the search area and take us to odor. Gimme was ready to go there almost from the start, but was willing to go with me. She's always loved the hunting as much, if not more, than the finding. Interestingly, the novice dogs were more persistent than the experienced dogs.
Vehicle 2 search video - The videographer missed the first few seconds of this search, but nothing happened there. Gimme was very efficient, going straight to the hide the moment she caught a bit of scent.
Exterior 2 search video - Gimme was again very efficient. She went straight from the start to the nearest hide. From there she headed toward the second hide and had it sourced in no time.
There is quite a bit of debate about whether to reward a dog after a blank search. Some are concerned about rewarding not-finding. After thinking it through, I've decided to just quickly cue a behavior and reward it. If Gimme is off leash, I call her to me, put the leash on and then reward. If she's on leash, I cue her "with me" (walk loosely with me) and then reward it.
She can't find a hide without searching for it, so I want to find a way to reward searching even if she didn't find anything. Rewards increase the likelihood of all the behaviors coming immediately before. Thus with unwanted behaviors you can get the I'll-be-bad-so-I-can-be-good-and-get-rewarded behavior chain. In this case, I'm happy to reward the behavior immediately before, so no worries.
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