Tracking and Odor Detection Workshop
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| Photo: John Mairs |
I spent a week in Guelph, Ontario, where I attended a wonderful workshop on nosework and tracking.
Jens Frank and Tobias Gustavsson are two specialist doing scent work with dogs at SWDI (Scandinavian Working Dog Institute). They work with dogs and teach police, military and other people who work with dogs around the world. After our training, they taught police dog squads from various Canadian police forces before returning home.
I had hesitated to attend this workshop because I had already attended 2 nose work clinics and a tracking course and I had studied quite a lot of books and videos on these subjects. I was not disappointed, quite the contrary. In the first half hour I was thrilled because I learned how to make my dog training more systematic, orderly, methodical, what I wanted to learn and what I did not find satisfactory information. Also I was not planning to attend the final day, which was about hard surface tracking. The professionalism of the teachers and the quality of the training made me change my mind so that I stayed an extra day in order to also attend this part of the workshop.
The event was held at Canine Academy. It is a fantastic place: country environment, magnificent vast training room, kitchen, dining room, etc.
I will have to devote a considerable amount of time to review the whole of this training and begin to put it into practice before writing a comprehensive synthesis but in the meantime, here are some elements that particularly struck me:
- Training
- I thought it took a lot of time to teach things to a dog. I learned that it is virtually impossible to show a dog what you can not teach him in less than three months.
- Dogs do not live long, so training must be as short as possible.
- We learned the various steps and techniques to show a dog how to do odor detection in various environments, including finding odors of objects that are under water which would be very easy for the dog to learn If the bases have been well learned.
- The more a dog is interested in objects, the easier it will be to train him to do a particular job.
- It is very important to generalize what the dog learned in different environments, situations, etc.
- Make a plan and adapt
- It is very advantageous to systematize our approach, to make a detailed plan. It improves the training and it makes us better the trainers.
- " All plans are bad. All planning is good.”, Winston Churchill.
- We must therefore constantly readjust our plan according to the dog’s behavior. Both experts argue that this is the contemporary method of dog training: adaptive dressage.
- Think, plan, execute, evaluate, then repeat the cycle by adjusting the plan.
- Train, test, trust the dog.
- Play
- Play is easy to recognize, difficult to define.
- We were shown how to play with a dog using a toy.
- Play constitutes a very good basis on which to establish training.
- It can be used as a reward.
- It is necessary to establish a deal with the dog to the effect that he has to be 100% certain that he will have the toy again and that the handler is 100% certain that he will have the toy again. This is important because the toy can be a source of conflict.
- It is important to read the dog's language and adapt the game accordingly.
- Calm or high intensity?
- Even in tasks involving olfaction, it is advantageous to have our dogs work at high intensity; I previously thought that the olfaction work required great calmness because it requires concentration.
- I saw how to teach a dog to "focus" on an object with very high intensity and to obey instantly, all through positive dressage.
- Handler / Dog Relationship and training
- All the training of these working dogs whether it's detection, tracking or apprehending suspects is based on a positive method and it works very well.
- It is very important to allow the dog to practice in different environments so that it generalizes its learning.
- We must learn to trust the dog.
- Sweden
- Most Swedes who buy a dog attend at least one traimimg course with him.
- The electronic collar is forbidden in Sweden.
- In Scandinavia, animal welfare is important. For example, in Sweden and in Denmark, governments pay specialists accompanied by tracking dogs to find large animals injured in road accidents in order to shorten their suffering. In Denmark, collisions with a wild animal must be declared as soon as possible otherwise severe penalties apply.
- Tracking
- They begin to train their dogs on hard surfaces (asphalt, concrete, etc.) which is more difficult for the dog but he will be a better tracker afterwards. We switch tracking on vegetation later.
- We watched a video that illustrated the intense concentration of a dog tracking on hard surfaces in central Paris through passers-by, bicycles, dogs, etc.
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| Photo: John Mairs |
- Odor detection
- Gradually increase difficulty.
- Intensity is sought rather than calm.
- The dog works voluntarily and autonomously: avoid as much as possible to direct it.
Finally, I had the opportunity to buy a book they are co-authored: Tracking Dog - Scent and Skills, Lars Fält, Tobias Gustavsson, Jens Frank, Jessica Aberg, SWDI Publishing, Linderberg, 2015, 216p.
http://swdi.se/en/product/tracking-dogs-scent-and-skills/
This book seems excellent. What I have read so far has already taught me a lot although I had some knowledge on the subject. I will write a review about it shortly.
Thank you Kajsa Milner Johansson for bringing them in Canada from Sweden
For more information:
The SWDI website:
http://swdi.se/en/Their Facebook page
https://www.facebook.com/swdiab/?fref=ts
Louis Cimon
16-12-13
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