Home › Forums › Recreational Truffle Dog Training 101 › Matt and Cheyenne (access until March 15, 2014) › Reply To: Matt and Cheyenne (access until March 15, 2014)
You set up looks great. I like that all of those items have previously been used in some of your training, and they provide other visual interest distractions, an while they are a visual guide for Cheyenne should she need it, there are many of them, which increase the difficulty.
She knows her start cue. We really LOVE to see that. She may be a very literal dog in the long run. This is something to keep in mind that she may only hunt when cued to do so, despite environmental factors of being active in a truffle patch. Just, file that away for later.
She does appear more at ease off lead.
Try to be cognizant of your verbal cues. At the 0:40 notice how you use the ‘go hunting’ cue again. You are by no means being excessive in your communicating information, but re- watch the video and see that she was still working out the problem. Allow her to try to continue a search pattern under her own terms. It didn’t happen here, but sometimes when you vocalize while the dog is working like that you may break them off odor accidentally because they will be focused on what you just said as opposed to the behavior they were just executing.
You can however provide encouragement/ a quieter ‘good job’ because we want her to know that her searching behavior is good! I like to see her work through an area not find it, change direction etc. She is working through space.
Don’t let the fact that she was near the odor and didn’t find it right away discourage you. in indoor areas scent columns/ cones move differently because of the lack of wind, and also dissipate less readily from previous areas where odor was hidden.
0:55- Perfect Matt. She stopped to look at you at an old hide site (if you hid something in that shoe, there may be lingering odor). You did well, simple provide her cue- which she takes! That was very nice.
1:12 GREAT to see her linger, and interact with the object where the odor source is hidden. Very nice. It shows a distinct difference between this and when she found the lingering scent. It was hard to see the ‘foot tap’ or if it was just a nose interaction- but either way, you are noticing the difference in her behavior for when she finds lingering scent to when she finds odor source.
Very nice guys! Good work and keep it up. AND good work on lengthening the praise when she does find it. You can draw it out even more. I know the treats dropped… but you get the idea!