Dogs are loyal and obedient and very good at picking up on human body language. When training a dog in detection (nosework) is important to make sure you proof the dog for your overt and/or inadvertent cueing. Cueing the dog to the scent or track comes in many forms such as looking, gesturing or postural cues towards the scent/track. Handlers may look towards/at the scent, they may change their breathing when dogs get close or even stand facing the scent. When dogs are on lead, a handler may guide the dog towards the scent and/or slow down and/or stop at the scent.
When discussing correct handling of dogs, most handlers will agree that it is of no benefit to the dog/team when cues are used, but it is, unfortunately, human nature to do so and often we do not even realise we are doing it.
We can however train our dogs to ignore all cues, inadvertent and overt. This should be done early in the training. It is often a missed element of training as handlers are so keen to get their dogs to find and alert at scent we forget to train them to be independent and obedient to the scent and not to us.
Another often overlooked element of successful detection dog (nosework) training is the addition of distractions. For me personally this means adding the obvious empty scent containers, scent containers with unscented swabs and scent containers with decoy scent. Additional other distractions are food, toys and animal scents. It is important to add distractions early in the training so the dog learns that the point of the exercise is to find the target odour and ONLY the target odour, and that it is only the target odour that gets the dog its reward.
Finally It is important that all handlers learn to read their dogs body language both obvious and subtle. Handlers need to learn to trust their dogs. I find the best way to develop trust in your dogs ability is to practice blind problems (where the handler does not know where the scent is). A blind problem is the only way to really know if your dog is working independently or picking up on cues. If you do not know where the scent is, you cannot cue. You will also find that it is when you do blind problems that you watch your dog more intently and are able to see the subtleties of their movement and body language as they move into and out of scent.
I have recently read a research paper by Lit et.al. (2011) where they looked at whether handler beliefs affected detection dog team performance and what the main influencing factors were, dogs or humans. They tested 18 drug and/or explosive dog teams in a range of scenarios. Handlers were falsely told that scenarios had paper markers at the target scent location (none of the scenarios had any target odour, the paper makers were placed to influence the handler to cue the dog). Scenarios contained paper markers that falsely indicated odour to the handlers, decoy scents (food and/or toy) and paper makers which the handler believed marked target scent but in fact marked the decoys (food or toy). None of the scenarios contained target scent, all alerts were therefore incorrect. The researchers found that dogs were more likely to falsely alert on the paper markers than on the decoy scents and therefore outcomes (alert behaviours) were influenced by handler imputs more than dogs imputs. However there were an alarming number of false alert on the decoys and in other locations. This got me thinking; detection dog teams should train more often in blind training exercises where no target odour is present. This is a thing that we often practised with search and rescue and it certainly teaches you to trust your dog. I also found personally that my dog had a particular behaviour (body language) that he would exhibit if there was no target odour. After a few training sessions I was able to pick up on this behaviour and knew that it was time to call him off or move on to another location. I think that this is not done enough in detection dog training. I also can’t see why those of you training your dogs in the sport of nosework should not also do these blind negative (no target odour) exercises once in a while to see what you and your dog do.
Reference:
Lit, L., Schweitzer, JB. & Oberbauer, AM. 2001 Handler beliefs affect scent detection dog outcomes. Animal Cognition, Vol. 11 pp387-394
When discussing correct handling of dogs, most handlers will agree that it is of no benefit to the dog/team when cues are used, but it is, unfortunately, human nature to do so and often we do not even realise we are doing it.
We can however train our dogs to ignore all cues, inadvertent and overt. This should be done early in the training. It is often a missed element of training as handlers are so keen to get their dogs to find and alert at scent we forget to train them to be independent and obedient to the scent and not to us.
Another often overlooked element of successful detection dog (nosework) training is the addition of distractions. For me personally this means adding the obvious empty scent containers, scent containers with unscented swabs and scent containers with decoy scent. Additional other distractions are food, toys and animal scents. It is important to add distractions early in the training so the dog learns that the point of the exercise is to find the target odour and ONLY the target odour, and that it is only the target odour that gets the dog its reward.
Finally It is important that all handlers learn to read their dogs body language both obvious and subtle. Handlers need to learn to trust their dogs. I find the best way to develop trust in your dogs ability is to practice blind problems (where the handler does not know where the scent is). A blind problem is the only way to really know if your dog is working independently or picking up on cues. If you do not know where the scent is, you cannot cue. You will also find that it is when you do blind problems that you watch your dog more intently and are able to see the subtleties of their movement and body language as they move into and out of scent.
I have recently read a research paper by Lit et.al. (2011) where they looked at whether handler beliefs affected detection dog team performance and what the main influencing factors were, dogs or humans. They tested 18 drug and/or explosive dog teams in a range of scenarios. Handlers were falsely told that scenarios had paper markers at the target scent location (none of the scenarios had any target odour, the paper makers were placed to influence the handler to cue the dog). Scenarios contained paper markers that falsely indicated odour to the handlers, decoy scents (food and/or toy) and paper makers which the handler believed marked target scent but in fact marked the decoys (food or toy). None of the scenarios contained target scent, all alerts were therefore incorrect. The researchers found that dogs were more likely to falsely alert on the paper markers than on the decoy scents and therefore outcomes (alert behaviours) were influenced by handler imputs more than dogs imputs. However there were an alarming number of false alert on the decoys and in other locations. This got me thinking; detection dog teams should train more often in blind training exercises where no target odour is present. This is a thing that we often practised with search and rescue and it certainly teaches you to trust your dog. I also found personally that my dog had a particular behaviour (body language) that he would exhibit if there was no target odour. After a few training sessions I was able to pick up on this behaviour and knew that it was time to call him off or move on to another location. I think that this is not done enough in detection dog training. I also can’t see why those of you training your dogs in the sport of nosework should not also do these blind negative (no target odour) exercises once in a while to see what you and your dog do.
Reference:
Lit, L., Schweitzer, JB. & Oberbauer, AM. 2001 Handler beliefs affect scent detection dog outcomes. Animal Cognition, Vol. 11 pp387-394