# Do dogs have bad days?



## Eric Zelaya (Dec 21, 2014)

Did some area search training in a new area with my K-9 yesterday (heavy floor coverage in wilderness, lots of tangled vines on ground, dog got stuck a few times). The first scenario we did she located the subject quickly (2.5 acres in 9 minutes). The second scenario in the same area of woods she just did not seem as into it as before. After about 10 minutes of gridding back and forth through this rough area, she went back to the roadway and would not come back into the woods even when commanded. I had to go back and put her on lead and "refocus" her in order for her to come into the woods with me. We finally located the subject after exiting the woods and entering through a different location. With that being said, this was the first time being in an area this rough (It was rough for me also, as I got stuck in the over growth a few times). I have never before had my K-9 become defiant during training like I saw yesterday. So with that said, do dogs have bad days like we do? Was this behavior caused by the environment?


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## Rob Maltese (Jan 8, 2014)

Eric Zelaya said:


> Did some area search training in a new area with my K-9 yesterday (heavy floor coverage in wilderness, lots of tangled vines on ground, dog got stuck a few times). The first scenario we did she located the subject quickly (2.5 acres in 9 minutes). The second scenario in the same area of woods she just did not seem as into it as before. After about 10 minutes of gridding back and forth through this rough area, she went back to the roadway and would not come back into the woods even when commanded. I had to go back and put her on lead and "refocus" her in order for her to come into the woods with me. We finally located the subject after exiting the woods and entering through a different location. With that being said, this was the first time being in an area this rough (It was rough for me also, as I got stuck in the over growth a few times). I have never before had my K-9 become defiant during training like I saw yesterday. So with that said, do dogs have bad days like we do? Was this behavior caused by the environment?



Could it be she was overly stressed after the first time, you stated she got tangled up a little. Could she have been discouraged to re-enter in fear of getting tangled up again?

I do personally believe dogs have their on and off days, some days my dog just wants to lounge around and be lazy, other days he is full of energy and vibrant. I'm okay with it, I'll work with him for sure.


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## rick smith (Dec 31, 2010)

stop humanizing
it's a D.O.G.
and get back to work //lol//

you seem to be in denial that your dog has some confidence issues.
work on them while you are continuing on with your SAR training !


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## Eric Zelaya (Dec 21, 2014)

Not in denial about confidence. I have a "soft" dog. It is what it is what it is. Never had a bad training day before and I always leave smiling, however, yesterday I was a little dissapointed as I did not feel she performed as well as she has in the past.


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## Rob Maltese (Jan 8, 2014)

Eric Zelaya said:


> Not in denial about confidence. I have a "soft" dog. It is what it is what it is. Never had a bad training day before and I always leave smiling, however, yesterday I was a little dissapointed as I did not feel she performed as well as she has in the past.


I would say try and introduce her to very controlled tangle-possible environments. Try to recreate some of the stuff she got tangled up in with rope, then you can begin to slowly make it harder and it will help her gain more confidence when it comes to that point.


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## leslie cassian (Jun 3, 2007)

The fastest way for me to shut my dog down is to get frustrated. Just one sigh can sometimes be enough. You have stated your dog is soft - consider what you are projecting emotionally and how that is affecting her

Also stop thinking of your dog as being defiant. More likely she does not understand what you want from her and is shutting down. 

How have your mentors in SAR training suggested you deal with this?


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## Eric Zelaya (Dec 21, 2014)

My mentors who were present with me also agreed that she did not appear to be as enthusiastic during that training and previous days. They believe that it is possible that since it was new terrain, she may have been uncertain. We ended the training day with a run away which of course she did excellent on. I'm sure it's also possible that me getting caught up in the vines and tripping over the overgrowth didn't help my attitude either during the scenario. Now with all this said remember that she did find the subject without any assistance. Just took a little more refocusing then normal


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## Nicole Stark (Jul 22, 2009)

How do you define "stuck"? Was she on a line? Just wondering.


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## Eric Zelaya (Dec 21, 2014)

She was not on lead. She only had her harness on. The vines and overgrowth was so thick on the forest floor she was getting tangled while trying to walk or run on the ground. (Her feet were getting tangled, not her harness)


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## Sarah Platts (Jan 12, 2010)

Some dogs crash through nasty shit and don't seem to feel it. Some dogs do. One of my dogs seems to be similar to yours. He will go through brambles but after he got wrapped up enough I had to cut him free a couple of time, he now finds a way where he doesn't have to go through them. I also had a dog that refused to work on prickly vegetation (he had tender feet) and I learned to work around the issue to still get the job done. 

I think you did the right thing by rebooting the problem and attacking it from another direction. All dogs have their personal quirks, working preferences, limitations, and power points. I would take the opportunity to do some off-lead free time back in the same area to give her some experience time in that type of vegetation. It's something you learn to do, work with your dog and figure out how to work around your "issues" and still get the job done. Don't give up hope and watch your frustration levels when things like this happen. It's all downhill through the lead.....


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## Eric Zelaya (Dec 21, 2014)

I know it sounds like I'm making excuses for the dog but I promise I'm not. Those that have seen her work all say she has great drive for it and loves finding people. Granted she is VERY food driven (to the point that she will continue to try and get at the treat pouch even after being rewarded) but she still works when asked. With that being said, I think part of my issue might be what others have suggested, the new terrain. Might need to go back and explore that terrain in a reguitar setting. Now here is an interesting question. During this scenario I had taken her bell off her harness ( she always wears the bell during training) but to avoid it getting caught up I took it off. My mentor mentioned that maybe it was possible that her not having her bell confused her or somehow changed what she was used to when working. Is this even possible ?


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## John Ly (Mar 26, 2014)

Eric Zelaya said:


> Now here is an interesting question. During this scenario I had taken her bell off her harness ( she always wears the bell during training) but to avoid it getting caught up I took it off. My mentor mentioned that maybe it was possible that her not having her bell confused her or somehow changed what she was used to when working. Is this even possible ?


again sounds like you're trying to find an excuse for her performance. 

are you doing sar as a hobby and something to do with your dog? or are you trying to get with a real team?

i'd imagine this same dog would have problems with slick floors or dark rooms or heights etc. all dogs have great drive to do stuff until faced with something unpleasant. 

if this was my dog i'd keep it as a pet and actually get a dog capable of the work. if this is just a hobby than more power to you. i have much more patience than i do!


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## Eric Zelaya (Dec 21, 2014)

Well first off SAR is not a hobby. SAR is a professional endeavor. I've been involved with SAR for 7 years, and have been paid public safety for the same. Second, I got this dog because of her drive. I evaluated her before I got her, and she had great play drive and was very intelligent. Third, she isn't afraid of slick floors, heights or the dark. Have worked her in many new areas and she has excelled wonderfully. Fourth, she has been evaluated by numerous other handlers with many years experience and all have the same response, she has great drive, she loves finding people, and keep building up the length of scenarios.


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## rick smith (Dec 31, 2010)

ok, to get back to your question 

NO i don't think dogs have bad days in any way shape or form like people do
- they are rarely "perfect", but unbelievably consistent compared to humans

if, based on what happened recently, you disagree, i can cite a long list of (mostly anecdotal) reasons with numerous breeds of dogs i've owned personally as to why i feel strongly that way

actually, their consistency and reliability is the main reason i like them so much and why i love woking with them 

it's easy to say "i know, they're dogs, not four legged humans", but often it's hard to NOT think of them that way when we describe what they do


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## Eric Zelaya (Dec 21, 2014)

Sarah Platts said:


> Some dogs crash through nasty shit and don't seem to feel it. Some dogs do. One of my dogs seems to be similar to yours. He will go through brambles but after he got wrapped up enough I had to cut him free a couple of time, he now finds a way where he doesn't have to go through them. I also had a dog that refused to work on prickly vegetation (he had tender feet) and I learned to work around the issue to still get the job done.


To piggy back off this point, I had a training with her last week and watched her do something shes never done before. The subject was hiding in the woods (obviously) and when my K-9 caught the scent, she crawled UNDER a barbed wire fence and started jumping through a thorny bush to get to the subject. I have never seen her do that before. Of course, contrary to what some "experts" on this thread have said, this shows high hunt drive. I now wonder if the fact that the subject was inside this mess of vines contributed to her acting that way, and acting differently the other day (not sure if I mentioned or not but the subject was not in the mess of vines when this other issue surfaced. subject was actually hiding in a carport behind a car that backed up to the woodline)


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## Paul Cipparone (Feb 13, 2011)

Perhaps changing the reward at the end of the find, to something more appealing may help, particularly in in the uncomfortable tangled working area. Example ... i was training a GSD for schH, when he decided not to track, i laid a track using a low rise & fall-off in the terrain, & hid flat to the ground, when the dog was close i gave him a bite. He was a bite-crazy dog. He scored a 100 in the following trial.


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## Sarah Platts (Jan 12, 2010)

Hey, don’t take the expert thing to heart. We all have our different experiences and you know the old joke that if you get three dog trainers together in the same room the only thing that happens is that two of them can agree that the third guy is wrong. We have all gotten bad advice and done our share of screw-ups (“well, that didn’t work to good…..”). One of your jobs is to filter through the advice and pick out what applies to you or your dog. You know your dog. We don’t. We don’t live with it, work with it, have seen it work, or anything beyond what you tell us. Do I think that dogs can have a bad day? Yes.
But what defines a bad day? I think dogs have fewer issues or issues on a different level than we do. I think they can have attitudes, working problems, and bad associations. I think there are days they don’t feel well or their arthritis is kicking up and they don’t want to move all that much. I think there are stupid dogs that will do anything you ask and I think there are smart ones that you have to try and stay ahead of.
If the people working with you and helping you train your dog like what they see in your dog then I would carry on and keep going. You asked about removing the bell and if that had something to do with the dog’s behavior. I don’t think so. One thing I would do is have the dog react and do their job no matter what they are wearing (or nothing at all). I used to have specific dog clothes for different tasks but got away from it because, occasionally, I need to work the dog incognito and discretely perform a task without calling a lot of attention to the event. There were other times when the brush was so thick that even a collar was causing the dog to hang up so they are working without a vest or whatnot on. There were times the dog is wearing his trailing harness but I need him to look for HR. So I got away from linking behavior to what he was wearing. But that’s me. Others feel different about the idea.
I would try and get out to more types of areas. Swampy ground, rocky terrain, arid country, etc. Try and give your dog lots of tools in his tool box to help him do his job. Try looking at the problem from different perspectives. How we see things is not how the dog sees things. How we think the dog will solve the problem may not be how they would do it at all. I’ll have to post a little video snip of a cadaver problem that Gus worked over the weekend. Stupid simple (I thought) but he sure managed to complicate it.


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## Eric Zelaya (Dec 21, 2014)

Figured I would post a video of my K-9 partner. While this wasn't training, its a video of her drive. She loves to play....

http://youtu.be/zKXPZvOp9Gk


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## Matt Vandart (Nov 28, 2012)

Yes they do IMO


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## Sarah Platts (Jan 12, 2010)

What a happy dog! Sad to say the jerkiness made me stop watching it early.
It would be nice to see a vid of her looking for her ball in tall grass or even a nice runaway problem.


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## Eric Zelaya (Dec 21, 2014)

She won't play outside with the ball which is strange. Destroys toys inside but would rather run around outside. Now with runaways...she loses her mind. She loves getting hyped up and people running away. I have a video of her doing a cold start runaway with her doing a GREAT fringe. It's shaky but a good video


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## Eric Zelaya (Dec 21, 2014)

Shaky but I was trying to keep up with her. She's fast ! Just try and look for the white and orange running through the trees. You can see as she starts fringing the scent cone.

http://youtu.be/5i04bKjHs_w


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## Eric Zelaya (Dec 21, 2014)

Took a few days off and decided to train yesterday. Had to say it was probably one of the BEST training days i've had. Cleared a 1.5 acre area in less then 3 minutes with a positive recall/refind. Before I even got to the edge of the search area, K-9 was already tugging at the leash. Gave the search command and she took off, ranging a good 50 yards away from me, fringing the scent cone. Was really quite the sight to behold.


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