What is sourcing?
- Dogs driving to the highest concentration of odor
- It isn’t ONLY the moment of the dog finding target, it’s the entire components of the dog’s drive as they search for the scent
Overview of the components of a search
- A large component is your dog not being in odor all of the time
- The dog has to seek out the odor, driving to the source, getting to the source, and alerting to the source
What does sourcing LOOK like in our dogs?
- Look for the “aha” moment
- Look for an emotional shift
- If they understand the game, they will get excited
How to handle our dogs to help them (without creating MORE problems)
- Reinforce the “aha” moment and put emphasis on driving to the source. After that, you can start adding the final response/the alert
- It’s more important to focus on the sourcing, rather than the final response, because once you learn to read your dog’s sourcing body language, you won’t necessarily need a final response
- Allow your dog to work independently, don’t help too much
- Try to teach your dog to not pay attention to your behavior and focus on sourcing
- Consider what you’re doing with your body pressure
- Be mindful of human precision vs dog precision
- Don’t underestimate your dog
Exercises for building a dog’s ability to source/drive to odor
- Set your exercises up for success
- Thermal puzzles
- 3-dimensional searches
Find K9 Conservationists at: https://k9conservationists.org/
