Home › Forums › Recreational Truffle Dog Training 101 › Adam and Blu (access until April 10, 2014) › Reply To: Adam and Blu (access until April 10, 2014)
That is great Adam, and that you are hiding them under things in the house, behind objects etc.
When Blue gets close to the location, you can hear and see him using his sense smell for detection, which is exactly what we want to build upon, which is the original reason (one of them) for the boxes/containers, which is to act as a guide in larger physical spaces. That was a good move to improvise, some dogs will just ‘muscle’ through them- that may come into play later though when we start proofing against ‘cold’ targets, it may end up being a skill you would want to revisit. It may, it may not, we will see how the indoor hides develop.
Your timing is great, as is your asking him to re-alert. On the first hide he looks at you after you clicked. Just mentally note that. He looked at you ‘AFTER’. That’s is great, and fine, and then when prompted he re-alerted. My guess is had you not clicked he would have persisted. Keep doing exactly what you are doing, but, like I said, just mentally note it. He seems to already be developing an alert, which is also great. And he is persistent, as you can see when the target is in the blanket. Love that.
The only thing I would mention is after ‘you’ place the target, walk around the room for a minute. We don’t want to just teach Blu to follow your scent to the truffle source. I do not think that is the case here, but you want to be cognizant of where you are walking, leaving scent trails. He does follow your trail directly towards the object in both of those videos, and the truffle hasn’t been in either of those locations for more than 10 seconds. You can even walk around the room with the truffle in your hand for a few seconds. We just want to proof against him following you to the source.
Also we would encourage you to elongate the reward/ praise sequence at the end of your hides. We’d love you to show slightly more enthusiasm towards Blu on a job well done after the hide is found. Instead of telling him he’s awesome for just a few seconds, try to make it closer to 10 seconds. This will build his levels of confidence/ excitement so this really will be ‘THE MOST FUN’ game ever. You don’t need to work him up necessarily, but aim at drawing the sequence out. This will be important later.
- This reply was modified 9 years, 9 months ago by Alana McGee. Reason: added content