Reply To: Evidence Search
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If you train so that your dog finds everything touched by a human, he’ll find those articles touched by the lost person AND items touch by others. No proofing is required.
Training both means LOTS of proofing, and it introduces the chance for confusion on the part of the dog. There’s no such confusion with a dog that finds items touched by a human. Both of those issues take time away from other training and that will probably delay certification.
It also introduces a bit of redundancy. I’m not a fan of anything like this. I know of an OB trainer who wanted to add SAR to his resume. He had one command if his dog forged out of a proper heel position, another if the dog was too wide, another if the dog was lagging and yet another if the dog was bumping against his leg. In my theory of training This is a waste of time teaching these 5 commands. The command “Heel” means “get yourself into the proper position, not forging, not lagging, not wide, and not bumping. One word replaces his 5 separate commands. He thought it demonstrated his skill as a trainer. I thought it wasted valuable training time.
That fella certified his dog once and was unable to recertify. He never tried to train/work another dog.
IME, training time is short and valuable. I think it’s a waste of that time to introduce redundancy.
Take care, Lou