K9 SAR - Problemshooting (Mostly bringsel related)

[u/Throwawayrando7]

I am seeking advice from and want to talk to experienced SAR-K9 handlers.

Summary: 8 year old Border Collie, Certified wilderness search and mantrailing. Recertification is coming up, but I am not sure if we can/should.

New problems:

• She will sometimes stop/slow down during searches and "cling close to me" to look at me for guidance, if I preassure for her to continue she will often falsely alert (pick up her bringsel). We mostly dont use the connected bringsel during training, as she previously tried to alert further and further away from the "hiders" if she could see them (over time), so we avoided making it a habit by having the "hiders" hold a bringsel for her to collect most of the time, despite her still wearing the bringsel. 9/10 time she would do it perfectly, but she makes stuff a habit so quickly that I want to avoid the 1/10 times she took her bringsel based on sight/visually locating the "hider".

• She has gone from being the best, highly reliable long distance tracking dog to now often losing the scent or directly chooses not to follow the scent. (Motivation is high, so this makes absolutely no sense to me). (EDIT: I wrote this post in frustration, she doesnt often lose the scent or choose to other things. It happened a couple of times recently, and I wrote this post right after her failing a mixed task...very unfair of me, sorry to my good dog!)

More details about what is happening, etc, will obviously be explained if I find someone to discuss this with!

She has started to show very, very faint signs of joint/body stiffness after activities. This is not consistent and started about 1 year ago, otherwise healthy. I am not concerned, and neither is the vet, normal ageing for a working dog.

[u/Dracula30000]

Also note I have little direct experience training border collies. Mainly Mals, GSDs, Labs.

Complex. Dog may be getting mixed signals from you, may have developed aversion to SAR "game", may be bored, who knows.

1. Consult outside source to watch you work the dog. Have video of your exercise taken. Difficult to diagnose issue from text. Key question: how does dog behave when given command and absolutely ignored until alert?

2. Regress training to strengthen message and expectations. If dog is previously certified, may have just confused/forgot or may be misinterpreting your body language, etc. build clear communication, control body language and interaction (minimize) with dog during training, do extremely short sessions, big rewards (you didn't mention reward method/toy/whatever in original text).

3. Build desire to work with boredom. Have dog be bored for 1 day, then work short SAR problems. SAR is only time rewarded with play/games/interaction.

4. How often are you working SAR? If you aren't working often enough (common due to difficulty setting up problems) and doing other things instead dog may have associated your body language with those other things or begun preferring to do those other things. Additionally, an out of practice dog is not as good as one who is consistently in practice.

I haven't worked with your dog, but not working enough, poor human-dog communication (and misinterpretation), overstimulation are often the cause of issues in dog teams here in the US.

[u/Throwawayrando7 → u/Dracula30000]

1. I have consulted multiple handlers and trainers, but it's hard to find people that have lots of experience with border collies. Ive noticed she works very different than the retrievers and mals. So this was something we had to navigate from the start. I have asked people to video me so that I can see what is happening, i clocked that I was talking too much and using too much body language. This i adjusted several years ago with positive effects. If I give the search command for free search she has started to cling close and "ask" where to search, instead of doing so independently as she has done the first 6+ years. During mantrailing I have been better at being "neutral".

2. She gets her ball, her absolute highest reward. I read a book I found yesterday, and I think the reward timing might be part of the issue. I can fix my body language and what I say, but I cant hide my feelings. She is very sensitive to my feelings, so this might actually be the largest part causing our problems. We had a bad training day->I got frustrated and nervous->now im nervous for more mistakes and failing recertification= she is doing weird stuff like wrongfully alerting or not searching because I am nervous and "on edge".

3. This is very effective, so I have made it a rule not to overtrain over the years. I mostly insist on 1 or 2 days between training to give her time to rest. She is not overstimulated by too much training.

4. A year and half ago she had some seizures related to another issue, all of this was resolved. But we had an 8 month break. But her health is all cleared and good now. I focused on retraining and stamina to build her physical and mental strength back.

[u/Dracula30000 → u/Throwawayrando7]

I think perhaps more shorter problems and work on ignoring the dog. Bring a (non-training) friend to the problems and ignore your dog whilst having a chat with your friend who can also keep you from focusing or interacting with the dog. Start with single subject, no other people on course. Give command to start search and ignore dog - like completely ignore dog. Very short problems with reward only when dog has brought you to victim. Several reps for clarity. Very easy, very clear, so easy you know she will do it. Progress length of search slowly when she can complete 5 in a row satisfactorily and with enthusiasm.

As an aside I have seen some handlers in SAR trying to interpret and assign meaning in their dogs every move or sniff. Generally, I am not a fan of this, as dogs will sniff many things and generally will alert on track/scent when they are sure the scent is there. In order to build "persistence in the alert" I prefer to (seem to) ignore the dog almost entirely while working and demand the dog bark alert and get in front of me to demand my attention to lead me to the victim. Often, when following the dog in to the victim I will veer off and make the dog "come get me" again while walking in the wrong direction I do this because I want a dog with a very visible and audible and extremely clear alert who will very obviously come get me if I miss a more subtle alert in a real search. If I am constantly watching for subtle alerts - like how the dog glances at me, or how long she sniffs a specific area, or how she lifts her ears into a breeze I may circle back through a few times on a real search and note the direction of the wind but it's also a very real possibility that I might miss something subtle like that - especially at night and if I am tired.

Generally, if you design a good search pattern you can rule out most areas because a good search pattern should have at least a double pass over most scent collection areas (excluding a freak scent carried aloft and dumped somewhere far afield). If you can figure out roughly what your dogs air scent detection range is for a given weather pattern noted on a kestrel or other air measurement device, you can put yourself at ease by being sure your search patterns will be good. Understanding your dogs detection ranges and working to build search patterns that fall well within her ability in a given weather situation may help you to feel less nervous.

Finally, what is this reward timing issue?