5th August 2010

I am so overly excited it’s ridiculous. I have had an amazing day. Tina and I drove up to Cheshire yesterday and worked with the sniffer dogs. I can’t stop smiling. The dogs were amazing and responded so well to both TTouch and clicker training that the handlers almost had their jaws on the floor. One young dog is a little over enthusiastic in his searches and gets carried away. When he first came into the training rooms he skittered about crashing into things and although he did find the article his indication was weak and he was pawing at the block that contained the hidden article. We took him outside and I ran my hands over his body.

Not surprisingly he was wriggly when touched which is classic with horses and dogs that lose focus easily. I popped a Thundershirt on him which is a great new product from the US designed originally for dogs that are fearful of thunder and fireworks but I use it for calming excitable behaviours in general. I was then able to do a little body work with him and introduced him to the clicker which will enable the handlers to gradually shape the indication to one that is more focused and prolonged.

We gave him a break and then took him back in to the training room. Instead of leaping up and down barking as he had done in the morning session he stood calmly by the handlers side and when he was released he moved calmly around the rooms without knocking anything over. When he found the article he stood staring at the new location and did not paw at all. He was totally brilliant and we were all stunned. Of course I knew (or hoped) that these techniques would help him but I never assume anything is going to happen and his response to such a short amount of work was spectacular. He could not have been better.

I also worked with a second dog that is involved in wildlife searches. The company Wagtail UK have been in South Africa looking for scats so that the big cats can be tracked and are also involved in research projects here in the UK. The projects here are still a little hush hush, so I can’t say what the dog is being trained to find but again the results were truly outstanding. The company is now hooked on both TTouch and clicker and I am going back to train the staff in a couple of weeks.

This entry was posted on 23. August 2010 at 16:07 and is filed under Sarah Fisher. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.