Imagine performing a difficult task. Just as you are coming up to the most complex and intense part of that task, your ever so helpful partner hovers over you, uncomfortably close, and asks, “Did you get it? Are you almost done? What do you have? Can I see? Hurry up! Tell me!” You think, Hey! Give me a second! Conversely, what happens when you have worked hard, toiled, and have reached the pinnacle “aha” moment of your task? You can’t wait to share your success with your partner. You look toward your partner who is walking away, looking up at the sky, and showing zero interest in your accomplishment. Or, you are working through a task and something catches your attention. You hesitate just a bit while deciding whether to focus in or to move on. Just as you are about to move on, your partner abruptly stops, holds his/her breath, and stares at you? Your response, Oh oh did I miss something? Maybe I should go back. Should I be doing something else here? Worse yet, your partner starts barking orders for you to tell him, in a very particular way, that you have completed your task even when you haven’t.
Do you see yourself in any of these descriptions when working your dog? Well, that’s not surprising because when learning the task of detection dog training, whether for sport or professional work, you’re told so many things to do as a handler which seem to contradict each other:
Support your dog.
Don’t talk to your dog.
Give your dog space.
Help your dog know where to search.
Move with your dog.
Give your dog time.
Read your dog’s body language.
Train a trained final response.
Wait the dog out.
Reward faster.
Get out of your dog’s way.
Detail the area.
Cue the dog.
Stop cueing the dog.
Reward away from source.
Trust your dog!!!
It’s no wonder people struggle. Add some leash handling into the mix and the difficulty multiplies ten-fold. Yikes!
So, why is it when watching experienced teams, they just seem to flow together. The dogs are efficient and on task. The handlers are present when needed and invisible when not. They are able to support without interfering. They get their dogs into odor but don’t inhibit the dog’s independent hunt nor do they detail every inch of an area to do it. As with so many things in life, the answer lies in finding balance with your individual dog ~ learning to be a partner who compliments rather than impedes. Serving as a partner who is active when needed and who fades back when not. These are skills that rarely come easily and usually require lots of training, practice, quality critique from others, and experience.
Let’s examine each of the handler types described above and label them as follows:
1. Helicopter Handler – the handler who hovers, closes in, and interferes throughout the search. This handler often crowds their dog off of target odor and sometimes even causes avoidance due to the pressure they put on their dog and the resulting stress when in target odor. With this much interference, the dog will also often relinquish all control of the search to the handler and wait for the handler to tell it where to search next rather than the dog hunting with independence.
2. Whatever Handler – the handler who, in an effort to not cue their dog, goes to great lengths to appear disinterested by turning their back, walking away, looking up at the sky, or moving erratically. This handler often causes a dog to lose confidence in itself, often resulting in the dog leaving or avoiding target odor in an effort to avoid the stress and conflict due to lack of clarity of task. Or the dog while still wanting to please, feeling no support or interest from the handler and not knowing exactly what it should do, sticks close to the handler out of confusion and lack of confidence in the task.
3. Alarmist Handler – the handler who watches their dog for the slightest interest or sniffing of anything. This handler locks up, sometimes gasps and holds their breath, practically clicks their heels as they stop dead in their tracks, and reaches for their reward before the dog has shown the handler that it is certain it has located target odor. This scenario is what most often leads to false indications or handler co-dependence. The dog is not clear when it is right or wrong because it is getting coaxed by and ultimately responding to the handler’s cues rather than odor. Worst case, the handler, when seeing any behavior change by the dog, mistakenly rewards the dog for non-target odors which causes all sorts of issues.
Certainly, there are many ways to mitigate the above issues through better training of the dog ~ training clarity of task, building confidence and independence in the hunt, building stronger motivation for the odor, proofing off of distraction odors and handler influence, broadening the dog’s understanding in different contexts, and increasing the dog’s ability to solve complex scent problems to name a few. But, at the end of the day, the dog is only one member of the team. Yes team! That’s what a dog and handler are. As handlers we need to ask how well we are balancing our training. Are we putting all of our energy into the dog’s training weaknesses? Do we put any time or energy into recognizing and addressing our own shortcomings as handlers? Do we accept responsibility for how we may be contributing to poor performance in our dogs? For the purposes of this article, we will focus only on the handler and ways the handler can become a better partner by eliminating negative pressure and influence on the dog while still providing positive guidance and support.
At the risk of anthropomorphizing, think of what it is like to work with a good human partner. You both have different skills and roles. Each carries their own weight. If you are a good partner, you value the skills of your partner and trust them to apply and stay within their role. It is neither productive nor prudent to challenge them at every turn, micro manage the task at which they excel, lack trust in their ability, or disregard their performance.
For example, your friend has lost a pair of sunglasses while the two of you were out for a hike. You have poor vision so, can’t really be of much assistance with regard to actually finding the glasses. You do, however, have a good recollection of where the two of you hiked. Your friend was chatting throughout the hike and not paying attention to the path walked but certainly knows what the glasses look like and has great vision. Working as a team, playing to each of your strengths, supporting each other, and staying within your roles, you have a really good chance of finding the glasses.
For illustration, let’s say that while out searching, every time your friend slows their pace a little bit to take a longer look at something, you race over and “helicopter” your friend. They may consciously or subconsciously respond to your pressuring by maintaining a steady pace so avoid and not trigger your badgering. This will reduce your friend’s chances of locating their glasses because they are no longer taking the time to look closely when they think they may have caught a glimpse of their glasses. Worse yet, your friend may just give up their own searching efforts and wait for you to direct them where to look. What happens if instead, you are the “whatever” partner, just dragging along in feigned support, never breaking stride or even looking in your partner’s direction? Your partner says, “Hey, hold up a second. I may have something here.” If repeatedly ignored, your partner will likely sense your disinterest and abandon trying to find their glasses. Lastly, if you are the “alarmist” partner, who constantly holds up progress in the search by thinking that you see the glasses and encouraging your partner to check out every anomaly along the path, even though you have really poor eyesight and your role is to remember the path hiked, your partner will become distracted and either start questioning their own ability to find the glasses or just acquiesce and wait for you to direct them to the next possible piece of trash or shiny object along the path. None of these are examples of being a good partner.
I suspect by now, some of you are seeing a little bit of yourselves in these examples. If not, maybe it is worth videotaping yourself while working your dog on a “blind” problem in which you do not know if or where any odor sources are hidden. Then sit down alone, with a trusted trainer, or training buddy to view the video. Don’t just watch the dog. Watch yourself. Watch how you move and how, if at all, your movement impacts your dog. If you turn, does your dog turn? If you move toward the dog when he’s on odor, does he shift away from odor or you, lower his tail or ears, lick his lips, go into a trained final response of sit or down but lose focus in the odor? If you walk faster, does the dog move faster and stop sniffing or does your walking faster get him into a better searching pace? If you walk as if on egg shells, does the dog seem more tentative or hesitant in their search? If you stand in one place and continue to face a particular corner of a room, does the dog continue to search that corner of the room. If you turn your body just 90 degrees away from that corner, does the dog then leave the corner of the room he was searching to continue searching along a wall? If your back is turned when your dog locates target odor, does your dog look back to you and then just follow along leaving odor behind? When your dog finds odor and is excited to communicate his find with you, does he look back to see someone who is disinterested, stern, demanding, lacking confidence, untrusting or does he look back to someone who is beaming with pride and “in it to win it” with him? Do you find yourself holding your breath just a bit or reaching for the treats or toy in your pocket every time your dog appears to have interest in something or are you breathing and moving naturally? These are just some examples of how we not only influence our dogs but how we can either impede or compliment their ability to do what they are best equipped to do…independently sniff out odor and communicate their find to us.
The interesting thing is that when people work with people, a good human partner is able to support and work cooperatively without micro managing. Good working partnerships allow each person to utilize their best strengths. When people work with detection dogs however, our natural team-player good-partnering instincts seem to go out the window. We walk awkwardly, get jerky in our movements, tip-toe around like any noise will ruin the search, and look up at the sky when the dog has found odor for fear of cueing the dog. We block the dog from searching by pointing and detailing too much, walking backwards in front of the dog (which also disrupts the odor plume,) pulling them off of target odor and pushing them to indicate when showing interest in a distraction odor, basically crushing the dog’s ability to have success on its own. We get impatient, demanding, insecure, stressed, overbearing, stuck, and even emotional. I think part of this is because so many are used to working with their dogs in obedience or agility or many other sports in which they have to completely control and direct their dog’s actions. Even in our family lives with our dogs, we direct everything. We are not used to relinquishing trust and control to our dogs, allowing them to work freely and independently. Detection work requires that we do. The dogs have the nose! The task of finding odor is entirely theirs.
We have only three jobs during the search ~ get our dog’s nose into an area where they can find odor, stay out of their way, and pay them enthusiastically for doing it! How do we do that while being a good partner? Some of the ways are illustrated above. Start by defining and really understanding your dog’s role versus your role. Train so that you can trust him to fulfil his role. Master your ability to watch your dog and guide him to where you need him to search without distracting him, getting in his way, or badgering him. Be patient and supportive without second-guessing, interfering, or stepping on him. As he works his way through a search area, give him a slack leash, flow in concert with him, and dance with him. If your dog shows some interest, fade back out of his way to give him space to bracket and sniff his way to what caught his attention. By fading back, you will have a better opportunity to see his specific body language changes. Give him some time to make the right decision ~ target odor or not target odor. Be ready to move forward with him again if he wants to move forward to search again. If you feel the need to keep moving while he is showing interest in something, you can move in an arc around him rather than walking away from him. When the dog is actively searching, you are an attentive and trusting partner, keeping track of areas that may need more coverage. When the dog has made the find, you are there to celebrate with him.
When teaching classes and workshops, I use the analogy of conducting an Easter egg hunt with a three-year-old child. We quietly encourage and guide the child toward the “hidden” egg but allow them to find it on their own. Once the egg is found, we are there to praise, hug, and say, “Wow, look what you found all by yourself!!”
