Individually Adapted Training

When the dog knows these exercises, we can strengthen these achievements by offering the dog increasingly more difficult circumstances. For instance, have it search longer to get results or do more work in the rubble to find the helper. This will make the drive to get the sock toy stronger. This building-up process has to be adapted to every individual dog. Some dogs have more physical strength and stamina than other dogs. Particularly in rubble, the materials with which the hiding place is closed must be adapted to the strength, stamina, and training level of the dog.

Heavier terrain and more difficult circumstances mean the dog will sense more excitement during search actions. It must go through a larger search area or a heavier covering to reach the helper—it has to do more to get to the sock toy. Or it encounters totally new circumstances that it has to endure to be successful. For instance, the dog might encounter blackberry bushes; ditches; thick, almost impenetrable plant growth; or dark corridors and cellars with all sorts of obstacles.

Figure 4.4 Dogs can dig passionately in avalanche search training in the excitement of finding a buried person.

Never forget to work out the complete ritual of a search action, no matter how short, from the beginning to end. So don’t forget the prey sharing: the dog comes to the handler after its independent playing. Play with the dog a bit with the sock toy. The dog should be allowed to keep the toy as long as it wants, so don’t fight to take it away. Then, when the dog lets the sock toy fall or wants to give it to you, take it and give the dog its biscuits in connection with the sock toy. Be careful not to take out the biscuits too early, when the dog isn’t ready to finish its prey game. Dogs that like food will stop playing and come immediately for the biscuit. It’s important to develop the dog’s prey game, and if the dog stops playing, try to move the sock toy again with your foot or hand. Often the dog is still interested and moving the sock toy starts it playing again.

In the next three chapters, we will explore each step of training in more detail.

Stimulating Interest in the Sock Toy

Many years have passed since the earthquake disaster in southern Italy in 1980. In the meantime we have had a lot of experience in actual search missions and have refined our training method considerably. The results we have achieved with different training groups and courses in our own country and elsewhere, and our success with our own dogs, suggest that our method of training appeals to almost all dogs.

Things That Move Are Prey

A search and rescue dog can be encouraged to have a real passion for searching with all sorts of prey and search performances. However, to make it clear to the dog that it has to search for its hidden sock toy, we have to work with the dog in the right manner. An article lying without movement will not be a hunting object for the dog; however, a moving object is immediately a living event for the dog. For the dog, with its origins as a hunter, everything that moves quickly will be recognized as prey and activate the hunting drive. When the sock toy disappears in high grass and there is no track to this prey, then the dog’s search drive will be activated. The search drive is an instinct the dog inherited from its forebears—a dog doesn’t have to learn to search.

Search and Prey Playing

The dog will learn, through this search and prey playing, to use its sense of smell intensively. It can also work in the techniques of using of air turbulence and odor traces, which are important for future work as a search and rescue dog. At the same time, the handler has a great opportunity, while the dog works at searching and locating, to learn to understand the dog’s body language and alert behavior. This way of playing can be understood as a prey performance, with the sock toy as prey.

If the dog is now highly interested in the sock toy, we can combine it with different searches, for example, in the house. The toy will at first be hidden in a corner of the room under a little carpet. The dog sees the direction but doesn’t know exactly where the sock toy is hidden. Then it will be activated to search. It can locate the toy quite quickly, and the handler, of course, should be very enthusiastic about the find. Play with the dog and the sock toy without any rush to move on, and at last the prey sharing takes place.

These searches should become more difficult, and at some point the dog should no longer know where the toy is hidden because it has to wait in another room while the toy is placed. These searches can, of course, also be done in a garden, woods, or park. Always follow up locating the sock toy with comprehensive playing and prey sharing. In this way the dog will become quite adept at searching.

Figure 5.1 The dog finds the sock toy in the high grass, plays with it, and then brings it to the handler.

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