Earlier this month we had a prime training opportunity: a Christmas Market held just two blocks away. With pop-up stalls, crowds, lots of unusual objects, overhead announcements, music, generators, and dancing, the market provides quite a challenge for socialization and environmental stability. We knew that these two pups were not ready for that level of […]

Consider a dog needed at a major airport- https://youtu.be/pD__EDBizj4 As the dog walks through the airport, every kiosk, vending machine, trash can, water fountain, piece of luggage, and person is a target to search for odor. As the dog searches they encounter every variety of flooring to walk on, constant distractions of overhead announcements, the […]

[accordion] [accordion_panel title="2019"] December An unusual training week January End Goals and Building Behavior Patterns [/accordion_panel] [/accordion]

It has only been three days with the new puppy “Trip” but here are some things that might not be second nature to everyone- Patience is my greatest ally- I have 10 to 14 months to bring out the best in this pup. I haven’t put a leash on him yet. I want independence, not […]

Moving the puppy from the pen on the left to the pen on the right created some acute stress. A good detection dog can accommodate and adapt to environmental stress without impacting his performance. This is a minor change–just imagine a dog only accustomed to his own home and property being assessed in a strange […]

[accordion] [accordion_panel title="2020"] April Resilience March Starting with an 8 week old pup [/accordion_panel] [/accordion] [accordion] [accordion_panel title="2019"] October Resilience and Epigenetics Resilience (cont) June Resilience [/accordion_panel] [/accordion]

https://www.akc.org/akc-detection-dog-task-force/akc-pilot-detection-puppy-rearing-program/blogs/trainer-development/problem-training-plans/ In an earlier post I spoke of the problem with training plans. Currently we have three large groups of participants with specific breeds and a smaller group of other breeds not represented in the first few. Training a detection dog is a dynamic process. Specifically, it is not A to B to C to […]

Gregor Mendel, father of modern genetics, was a meticulous record keeper. “It was there that he grew 28,000 pea plants during the period from 1856 to 1863. He kept careful records of his crossbreeding experiments and recorded each individual plant’s height, pod shape, flower location and color, and seed shape and color.” The Patriotic Puppy Program opened […]

[accordion] [accordion_panel title="2020"] June The two dog trainer paradox [/accordion_panel] [/accordion]  

This video pops up frequently in social media. What I like about it: -Time saving exercise with low requirement on the training knowledge of the care giver -Great use of social learning within the litter What I don’t like, based on my experience: – Difficult to capture performance data on the individuals in the litter […]