Home › Forums › Developing a Reliable Truffle Dog Team › Homework Forum – Developing a Reliable Truffle Dog Team › Annie & Dottie › Reply To: Annie & Dottie
Hi Annie.
As for what to do in that situation on the first alert, drop criteria. There could be a bunch of reasons why she didn’t do it, stemming from lack of familiarity of place, ground surface, your body positioning, etc. Bringing the truffle to her in this situation isn’t bad. That is not a rule we think that you need to be hard and fast on if Dottie needs the support, which she did here. You didn’t wait too long either, which is good. This is about the amount of time we would have suggested to prevent frustration. And no, it’s not bad.
If it becomes chronic in nature it’s something to look into a little more as to why and what is going on, but presenting her the target for a re-alert is fine in this circumstance. We’d always rather have a win 😉 We don’t want to present it to her every time if you can help it, but it means something about the situation is either hard, confusing, or not right and so we make it easier for a success. This repetition is just one of many in her future long career as truffle hunter.
As for when to end sessions, that is one of the hardest parts of being a handler during training. You did a great job on manufacturing success for her in these scenarios and then stopping after the finds.
1:56 good job Annie for knowing when she is in odor. If not, as in she wasn’t here, this would have been a good time to manufacture success.
2:53 really nice!
It looked good Annie. From the video you showed her energy looked pretty good. We think you are spot on as always in your analysis, but overall, this was a good session, and you as a handler learned more on this one too. Remember it’s a team 😉 And offering her the target is just fine in this scenario.