Picture this… you have been training hard… you are setting meaningful hides… and you only have an hour to get it all done. So you go out and set 4 hides, let them age and then go train. What could possibly go wrong? Everything actually.
Let’s say the first hide was gorgeous… you pay your dog and ask to find more hoping that the second one is just as good. But this time, something goes wrong… maybe your behavior chain gets muddied up with self employment behaviors (e.g., sniffing novel or distraction odor) or your hide is just harder than you planned and the dog struggles. You get through that one and then go on to the next one… because you only had an hour! This one was a little better but that squirrel ran through your search area. Phew! Finally found it… on the the last one… by now your dog isn’t quite as focused and you find yourself recueing a few times. But WOW that first hide was great!! Does this sounds familiar??
What did your dog learn? Probably not anything you wanted them to. Unfortunately at that point, the value of that first hide is long behind them and isn’t even a glimmer in their memory. What would have happened if you just stopped after the first hide?
Training is about Quality, not Quantity. Sometimes less is best. That doesn’t mean that we can’t do more searches… but instead of working them as a series of single hides… why not work them as single hide searches with a break in between?
When you work your dog, always think about what that dog’s training outcome was for the session. What will they remember? What will they take away from the lesson?
Remember… CLEAN Behavior Chain.
Single Hide Searches are extraordinarily impactful. Just Be Done.
I like that strategy. Shouldn’t we mix up the trainings by having multiple hides some days and single hides on other days just to keep it interesting for them? I wouldn’t want to lose the endurance part of it as we keep moving up in levels. Thanks
I listened some time ago to you talking about single hide searches and have found my dogs love it. They also love when they go search for more but doing single hide search for each dog inside or outside when a quick ‘search’ is wanted means I may do several searches in a day. Having three dogs at basically two levels – novice dog and exc/masters dogs they are all getting to do their own search. Sometimes I’ll do them all on the one search alternating who goes in what order – and simply change from where I send them from – larger area for more experienced dogs and narrow the area for the novice dog.