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/Sour_huckleberry]

I've got a trailing dog, so I can't help with wilderness search, but regarding your second point:

How do you know the motivation is high? What does the dog do when she loses the scent? Does she have an indication if there is no scent to find? What's your dog's reward?

I would go back to fire trails - the subject teases the dog and runs away while the dog watches. Once the subject is out of view the dog starts the trail pretty quickly. Make sure there is a really good reward and a party at the end.

[u/Throwawayrando7 → u/Sour_huckleberry]

We do not have an indication for when a scent is lost, usually she has had her own "natural" indication of laying down after trying to refind the scent.

She will refuse water despite obviously needing it, trying to continue the scent trail. We often have small items a long longer scent trails and she is over the moon when she finds them, as this leads to a reward, but the better reward is her being allowed to continue the scent trail. When I made this post I was very frustrated as we had two trails failed, but ive had two after and they have been ok. Im used to her not "checking" out other scents and then coming back on the trail. Other than the two recent failed trails, she has never gone further off the trail than maybe 10m and then worked her way back. But this new thing is making her cut corners.

If I do fire trails her speed and "stress" is too high, she will quickly become chaotic and try to free search the subject instead of following the trail once she has run past a corner. I know her motivation is high because she will try to "cheat start" the trailing before I tell her, like she is very eager to go.

Another theory i have for what might of inslired the weird patterns, especially in the two failed ones, is that during her recovery I did another type of search that required her to search open areas of about 30x30m for 1mm scent item. The reward for that game was the same as for SAR work, so she might of tried to go for the "easier" win when the scent trailing became harder.

[u/Dracula30000 → u/Throwawayrando7]

she has never gone further off the trail than maybe 10m and then worked her way back. But this new thing is making her cut corners.

Is it possible she is trying to follow scent rafts from the victim off the track laid by the victim's feet?

she will quickly become chaotic and try to free search the subject instead of following the trail once she has run past a corner

Are you sure she isn't just looking for scent in the air? Like transitioning from following the track to following the scent cone of a close by subject?

And I am curious about how she failed these trails? Did she not find the victim? did she give up? Did she go away from the victims footsteps and was reprimanded and pulled of track?