So as everyone else seems to have one i might as well start one for puzzle. She is coming on in leaps and bounds with her search and rescue training, with aims for her to qualify at assessments april/may time this year. She has an excellent pick up on any human scent, weather it be people or an article 9 glove, t-shirt and things like that) She is doing nearly full searches now, averaging about 45 minutes per search. She is really eager to get searching and knows what to do straight away. She has responded well to her 'go look' command training, which involves sending her up to 30 meters along path ways coming of a track, so little tracks that a person may have walked up, she will now 75% do this naturally as part or her search pattern without being told but sometimes she needs reminding or to be told to go further down the path. She really enjoys the training and it is rewarding. Other training she has also excelled at, especially our trick training. She loves to learn and is eager to please which makes training her really fun and easy. Her latest new trick is limping with her front leg, this is mainly to aid in balance and leg awareness. It has taken us nearly a month to get it but it was worth it, i am going to try and video her when we next have a training session.
Re: Puzzle's training log [quote author=Stacia link=topic=9922.msg144073#msg144073 date=1424129993] Do you make these lovely braids? [/quote] Yes i do
Re: Puzzle's training log [quote author=Boogie link=topic=9922.msg144138#msg144138 date=1424175810] That's really impressive - what sort of places does she do the searching? [/quote] mainly in forests but we do do some searches in open fields, quarry's and similar places like that
Re: Puzzle's training log Marvellous - and how soon before she does it 'for real'? (Gypsy would have made a great SAR dog, she's very smell orientated, I had to spend a lot of time training her not to sniff when she's working!)
Re: Puzzle's training log [quote author=Boogie link=topic=9922.msg144149#msg144149 date=1424180805] Marvellous - and how soon before she does it 'for real'? (Gypsy would have made a great SAR dog, she's very smell orientated, I had to spend a lot of time training her not to sniff when she's working!) [/quote] Hopefully after assemsnets in april/may this year, then it will just be waiting for a callout. Today's training we practiced our stop. She is coming along really well with this, stopping on the way to a retrieve, on the way back from a retrieve or just out of the blue when we are walking. We have built up the distance and the distractions so even the most tempting rabbit skin ball does not make her break or not listen, sometimes she is a little slow to respond when she is travelling at speed but she just needs to learn how to put her brakes on quicker
Re: Puzzle's training log Just catching up on the training logs and see Puzzle has one! Great. I can't wait to hear about her SAR career. Seems like 2 minutes ago she was a baby and now nearly a fully trained SAR dog! Get us some videos of SAR training if you can?
Re: Puzzle's training log thank you guys. Another few good training sessions have been had. Only a minor issue with her and articles, being a a retriever her natural instinct is to retrieve. But during SAR this is not ideal as articles can be used as evidence for the police so ideally need to be photographed and that where they are found, not at the handlers feet after being retrieved. Only solution is to literally tie the articles down to stop her picking them up and hopefully she will eventually learn not to retrieve them. Shouting 'leave it' will only confuse her as she has been taught to find articles so telling her to leave them is the opposite. We want her to find them but not bring them back. This was a self taught behaviour.
So might as well update on puzzle's training: She is up to full searches now, and is doing really well. She uses her own initiative to look up pathways without encouragement. Qualification should be october this year, and there is nothing stopping her from getting qualified now!
Well done Puzzle, what an achievement for you both. Good work Annabelle. Let us know when she qualifies xx
