The Aiken County Council is scheduled to again consider an overreaching animal ordinance at its meeting on Tuesday, August 18, 2020.  The most recent version of the proposal (as available on the county website at the time of the legislative alert) can be viewed here. Concerns, commentary, and recommendations:  Section 4-22 would require registration of […]

As their breeder, you have done everything you can to socialize your puppies before they go to their new homes, and you’ve gone the extra mile to accomplish this in the face of challenges due to COVID-19. But one thing that is very different now is the puppy’s first visit to his new vet. Veterinary […]

Roxane Dutson is the first Patriotic Puppy Programs' Participant of the Month!   Roxane has been active in the Patriotic Puppy Program since its inception in February 2019.  With 20+ years of experience breeding and training dogs, Roxane got started with the AKC Hunt Test, and has expanded to obedience, hunt training, and now detection […]

Decrease U.S. dependence on foreign suppliers of dogs by supporting domestic efforts to provide suitable detection dog candidates. Help breeders and trainers raise confident puppies that can become successful candidates for dog training programs. We provide remote support to program participants, guiding dogs’ development from birth through approximately one year of age. We ask participants to gather valuable data on […]

There have been a lot of changes in the world since COVID-19 appeared. Every day we have to figure new ways to do lots of things differently to protect ourselves and our families. We have always had to think about how to protect ourselves from the bad guys.  We know the bad guys are always […]

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 […]

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 […]

https://www.atf.gov/resource-center/fact-sheet/fact-sheet-national-canine-division https://youtu.be/Sz2gTaLFD2o At an EU/US working group meeting I recently attended, there was much reference to the national odor recognition test that was established by the ATF. The ATF (Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms), DOS (Department of State), and FPS (Federal Protective Service) all mentioned the use of the preliminary test for their certification/validation […]

8 week old GSD scent discrimination Shaping odor recognition with a puppy. Use of food reward machines removes handler from the dog's natural search patterns. Two of the target containers have the same dog food in them as the dog is being fed from the food reward machines. Initial stages of food machine training A […]

TSA/ACS Hunt test We ask you to take your puppy through this test at 3, 6, 9, and 12 months and send us the video. Several downloadable resources are shown below and more information is available in the Blog section of this website. Hunt Test Score Sheet (download below) Hunt Test Score Sheet and Reference […]