Training a Search and Rescue Dog

When Training Is Too Much Fun

A Mysterious Change in Behavior A few years ago, a search-and-rescue trainer named Sharon asked me to help problem-solve a perplexing case. Her dog, an energetic five-year-old Lab mix named Carson, suddenly stopped alerting when he found a person during search trials. Sharon and Carson were a FEMA-certified team that successfully found and helped rescue dozens of people over a …

Clicker-Training-How-to-Train-Scent-Discrimination-for-Obedience-Competition

How to Train Scent Discrimination for Obedience Competition

Scent discrimination is one of the “advanced” obedience exercises, but it is actually one of the easiest to train. Why? You are working with the dog’s single most acute sense: smell. It’s important to remember that in teaching scent discrimination, we are not teaching the dog to scent; that comes naturally. We are teaching two things: The discrimination Although the …