Duece and I have made a few short trips with him in the front passenger seat and it seems to be working. We'll find out on Friday since I need to go to town instead of the 8 mile short trips we've been doing. We haven't had time to do much pigeon hole board but a couple of days ago we set up in the garage again only in a different place. We start with the bone since it doesn't seem to me to have a strong scent like the other material. We also put some of his dog food in the 'decoy' container. He stopped a couple of times and sat for a very short time at the decoy hole, but seemed to realize it wasn't what we were doing. We used the lower holes with the bone and when we move to the other material we moved up to the higher holes. We could see the frustration in Duece as he seemed to know the wcent was there, but he didn't know to jump up to check them out. We tried to tap on the board, stick our fingers through the holes and tried a "check" as we tapped along the higher holes. He would reach as high as he could but would sit or lay down and star at the board. The next day we set up the board outside and with the wind coming from the back of the board. The 'decoy' container had some Beggin Strips in it and they are the same treats we use for rewards when working the board. We did things about the same as yesterday only this time Duece realized he could jump and stretch to the higher holes and indicate by scratching or sitting after checking out the correct hole. He tried a couple of times to sit at the 'decoy' hole but his body language was different, it was almost like he was testing us to see if we would treat for that hole. Once he realized we wouldn't, he moved on. A couple of times he went behind the board but we wouldn't let him stay there and check out any of the pigeon holes. We also set up a couple of hides out in the snow and let him find them, only he forgot he was supposed to sit and he dug up the container. We are going to put him on a long lead and work some more problems and we can stop him from digging with a small tug on the line and a sharp 'sit' command. We also need to do a whole bunch more time at the board so the 'sit indication' becomes instinct.
Duece's Blog where we keep track of Duece's training. Duece is an Australian Shepherd found at about 3 months old at the Circle of Friends Humane Society in Grand Forks, ND in December, 2008. His name when put up for adoption was "Moon" but because he's our second cadaver dog, we named him Duece and when I found out it was spelled wrong, we left it like that.
We thought we would blog our training experiences as Duece grows up and is on his way to becoming our cadaver dog and other things that Duece teaches us as we go along. Comments and suggestions are welcome.
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