# Food in drug and explosive detection training



## Jim Engel (Nov 14, 2007)

Is it generally true that objects such as a ball or kong are much more common motivations in drug and explosive detection than the use of food?


----------



## Kevin Cyr (Dec 28, 2012)

Jim Engel said:


> Is it generally true that objects such as a ball or kong are much more common motivations in drug and explosive detection than the use of food?


 
would be interesting to see any LE or Military that has any food reward dogs....


----------



## Ken Seminatore (Apr 20, 2011)

Jim Engel said:


> Is it generally true that objects such as a ball or kong are much more common motivations in drug and explosive detection than the use of food?


----------



## Ken Seminatore (Apr 20, 2011)

I would say that the reward is a kong, ball, or a tug toy, not a food reward.


----------



## mel boschwitz (Apr 23, 2010)

Met a guy last year who uses food reward for his arson dog.


----------



## Meg O'Donovan (Aug 20, 2012)

Did he give a reason why he preferred food for the arson dog?
What breed of dog was it? Just curious.


----------



## mel boschwitz (Apr 23, 2010)

It was a lab. The only time she ate was during training. He used quality kibble, and for every correct find she got a bit of her meal. He said they trained something like 80 times a day. As thats how many finds it took to get her thru her meals.


----------



## Sarah Platts (Jan 12, 2010)

Most training is always begun using food. Eventually moving to a tug, ball, or kong just makes it easier for the handler to carry or store long term. Besides, this topic as been discussed before.


----------



## David Winners (Apr 4, 2012)

In my experience, 

Most ATF labs are food reward and they get their meals through training only on training days, and in the kennel on off days.

The military selects adult dogs with prey drive and trains with toys, not food.

Medical alert dogs are most commonly trained with food and their responses are free shaped with a clicker.

For me, it comes down to the dog. The primary reward has to have high value, so if this means ball, tug, Kong on a rope, cheese, liver.... that's what should be used unless there is an operational or training reason not to. It's pretty hard for some handlers to keep a supply of Zukes on hand, so they should use toy rewards.

I also like the way Mike Suttles is imprinting with food and moving to toys later. It follows the progression I use in the rest of my training. I plan on following this route with my next detection dog.

Hope this helps.

David Winners


----------



## Kevin Cyr (Dec 28, 2012)

Sarah Platts said:


> Most training is always begun using food. Eventually moving to a tug, ball, or kong just makes it easier for the handler to carry or store long term. Besides, this topic as been discussed before.


 
Most training always begun using food? The questions was DRUG/BOMB Detectors....and other than people messing with puppies, the high majority use toys, easily accessible, used over and over, in training and practical real world application.


----------



## Derek Milliken (Apr 19, 2009)

David Winners said:


> In my experience,
> 
> Most ATF labs are food reward and they get their meals through training only on training days, and in the kennel on off days.
> 
> ...


I wondered when someone would bring up Mike and his early imprinting work with food. 
Also like the way this quote brought in operational ATF dogs working for food. 
I'd also add what Andrew Ramsey seems to be doing, teaching sport detection work with food and a clicker. Haven't seen the videos yet, but I've met Andrew and I'd like to see them. 

Of course I think MOST detection dogs work for a toy, but there are a lot out there starting to bring food and clickers at least into the early stages of training. 
Derek


Sent from Petguide.com Free App


----------



## David Winners (Apr 4, 2012)

Derek Milliken said:


> I wondered when someone would bring up Mike and his early imprinting work with food.
> Also like the way this quote brought in operational ATF dogs working for food.
> I'd also add what Andrew Ramsey seems to be doing, teaching sport detection work with food and a clicker. Haven't seen the videos yet, but I've met Andrew and I'd like to see them.
> 
> ...


I have the Andrew Ramsey videos, and they are very good IMHO. Good enough that a person with no knowledge of detection could imprint and start a dog in sport on their own. He developed this food delivery device thing for training food motivated dogs. It's pretty cool I guess. Never used one myself, but I see the logic in it.

I really like what Mike is doing. When I get home I'm going to buy some toilet parts and imprint some dogs this way.


----------



## Nancy Jocoy (Apr 19, 2006)

I think you tend to see food dogs doing cadaver more than drugs. Probably because more civilian dogs/handlers. Strongly prefer some kind of toy drive as it is so much easier to work with. 

That said, I have had and seen some dogs with such insane food drive that it worked for them and they actually were not "low drive" dogs. [though you see a lot of that with food reward dogs who really are just, meh]


----------



## Jim Engel (Nov 14, 2007)

David Winners said:


> In my experience,
> 
> Most ATF labs are food reward and they get their meals through training only on training days, and in the kennel on off days.
> 
> ...


David,
Very interesting, particularly the distinction between military/civilian(ATF)
In reading I get the impression that the ATF style tends toward using 
non police breeds, primarily Labrador Retrievers and tends to a food
reward system, in some programs the dogs only eat in training.
One of the points mentioned is that the food trained dog is not as
handler dependent, which leads me to speculate that the whole idea
is geared to multi handlers or easy transition from handler to handler.

Are ATF dogs, as in airport security, ever kenneled on site?
Do some programs involve use of multiple handlers?

It would seem that while the need for a bomb dog is intermittent,
that is, long periods of low activity, it would be helpful if several
people could employ an available dog immediately ?


----------



## Vinnie Norberg (Jun 5, 2010)

Jim Engel said:


> Is it generally true that objects such as a ball or kong are much more common motivations in drug and explosive detection than the use of food?


We use a toy reward (ball) for our accelerant detection canine (arson dog).


----------



## Joby Becker (Dec 13, 2009)

While I was at the airport, a TSA handler came through with his dog...

I talked to the guy for a few minutes about his dog and the training, he told me that his group used food rewards over toys, but that some of the other dogs are trained on toys. 

I watched the dog eat 2 different things it came across off of the floor, while they made their rounds in the small terminal I was in, I am not saying that the training with food had influence on this, just saying the I watched the dog eating things it came across, and the handler didnt seem to care....lol


----------



## Jim Engel (Nov 14, 2007)

Vinnie Norberg said:


> We use a toy reward (ball) for our accelerant detection canine (arson dog).


Was the dog trained from the beginning using only the ball,
or was there some food in the initial teaching phase?


----------



## Barry Connell (Jul 25, 2010)

Food used during the imprinting and indication shaping can be very beneficial when combined with markers. Food allows quick repeat-ability and less down time between rewards. We use what we jokingly call an "odor stick" to teach the target odor and the indication. Doesn't work on all dogs but a lot of them it does, especially younger dogs.


----------



## Vinnie Norberg (Jun 5, 2010)

Jim Engel said:


> Was the dog trained from the beginning using only the ball,
> or was there some food in the initial teaching phase?


There was some food used in the very beginning teaching phase.


----------



## Vinnie Norberg (Jun 5, 2010)

Came back to add that with our arson dog, my husband & Stefan Schaub are the ones who really have done the training. I watched a lot but I'm not real sure on some of the answers. So if I'm kind of short on the answers that is why. Maybe Stefan can help with some answers.  I do know that now he is rewarded with his ball for his correct finds. His motivation is his ball.


----------



## David Winners (Apr 4, 2012)

Jim Engel said:


> David,
> Very interesting, particularly the distinction between military/civilian(ATF)
> In reading I get the impression that the ATF style tends toward using
> non police breeds, primarily Labrador Retrievers and tends to a food
> ...


As far as I know, any certification these teams go through that allows them to work precludes the dog from working with another handler.

The ATF teams I know were all working overseas, so I do not know how their kennel arrangements work in the states.

IME, handler transition is far less dependent on the reward style, and far more dependent on the personality of the individual dog. As far as breeds go, without any hard data and just going on gut feelings and what I remember, GSDs are the hardest to switch handlers. Labs and mals are more in it for the reward and less for the relationship. YMMV.

The search time, or need for, EDDs is very high. Just because they don't often have finds doesn't mean they aren't working. Places like airports, entry control points to secure installations, high visibility public events and personal security details frequently have a high work load for EDDs.

David Winners


----------



## David Winners (Apr 4, 2012)

The forum messes up the quote...

@ Joby

Probably a lab LOL. Shop Vac with a tail.

David Winners


----------



## Joby Becker (Dec 13, 2009)

David Winners said:


> The forum messes up the quote...
> 
> @ Joby
> 
> ...


surprisingly it was a GSD.


----------



## Robbie Waldrop (Aug 31, 2013)

Just trained my 9 month old lab on marijuana just for fun. Its my wife's puppy so I just use him to experiment on different training techniques. I imprinted him using food with a clicker. Contacted Mike Suttle and got some ideas from him and bought supplies from lowes (he has details on YouTube videos). 

Some pros that I saw using food over toys was 
1. How quickly can repeat exercise ( more reps in 5-10 minutes)
2. Dog is calm and thinking during training, not over stimulated by toys.
3. Not food related but using clicker for marking was more effective than using my voice.

I pick up my new police partner next week and I will be using food because of this experience. Trained the last five police k9s using toys and they turned out good but I did not realize how many reps I missed out on. Hope this helps.


----------



## Barry Connell (Jul 25, 2010)

Robbie Waldrop said:


> Just trained my 9 month old lab on marijuana just for fun. Its my wife's puppy so I just use him to experiment on different training techniques. I imprinted him using food with a clicker. Contacted Mike Suttle and got some ideas from him and bought supplies from lowes (he has details on YouTube videos).
> 
> Some pros that I saw using food over toys was
> 1. How quickly can repeat exercise ( more reps in 5-10 minutes)
> ...


How old is the dog you're getting?


----------



## Nancy Jocoy (Apr 19, 2006)

I do agree that food is good for repetition drills and imprinting but my last GSD reminded me one day not do overdo it. After about the 10th rep, he bit the ball while it was in my pocket .....


----------



## Joby Becker (Dec 13, 2009)

Nancy Jocoy said:


> I do agree that food is good for repetition drills and imprinting but my last GSD reminded me one day not do overdo it. After about the 10th rep, he bit the ball while it was in my pocket .....


Im not sure how many detection people use the "fake toy toss" anymore, but I have personally seen 3 different handlers get nailed by their own dogs in 2 days of certifications, while the dogs were going for the toy because they were not fooled, granted it was over 15 years ago, all GSD's too, but they are smarter right??? 

one bicep bite, one chest, and one hand...


----------



## David Winners (Apr 4, 2012)

Joby Becker said:


> Im not sure how many detection people use the "fake toy toss" anymore, but I have personally seen 3 different handlers get nailed by their own dogs in 2 days of certifications, while the dogs were going for the toy because they were not fooled, granted it was over 15 years ago, all GSD's too, but they are smarter right???
> 
> one bicep bite, one chest, and one hand...


LOL... gotta love drive 

You still see the fake toss in the military sometimes. I offer a hand signal pointing in our general direction of travel, but I know the dog knows the ball isn't in my hand. We get past that stage pretty quickly. I also carry my balls in my back pocket, away from the nads, just in case.

David Winners


----------



## Nancy Jocoy (Apr 19, 2006)

I think it is good to be open minded. Marker training was used long by the pet and obedience crowd before it was accepted in working dogs.

We have a new cadaver dog in training on the team who is a food driven lab. He is a very methodical and focused dog. His first time on the boat was before he had ever worked a buried problem but after one visual run, he was spot on for several runs after that when we pulled down the buoy. We certainly think he will be an asset for boat and shallow grave problems. Not clear yet on covering 20-30 acres on his own.


----------



## Robbie Waldrop (Aug 31, 2013)

15 month old GSD


----------



## Jon Harris (Nov 23, 2011)

on all of the drug and bomb dog ive worked, including the bomb dog now, all training was with a toy.


----------



## Jim Engel (Nov 14, 2007)

Jon Harris said:


> on all of the drug and bomb dog ive worked, including the bomb dog now, all training was with a toy.


Jon,
Are these all Shepherds and / or Malinois?

I understand that there are Labrador Retrievers and other
not traditionally aggression breeds also in service,
what, if anything, do you know about their training?


----------



## Jon Harris (Nov 23, 2011)

The ones I handle are shepherds. the mals were all toy trained also. At Taji, we had 12 labs and 4 springer spaniels as explosive detection dogs. They were handled by Ugandans.
Seems they dont like pointy eared dogs.

anyway they were all also toy rewarded


----------



## Jim Engel (Nov 14, 2007)

Perhaps this will be interesting:

http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/733469.pdf

Unless I missed it, there is no mention of using a ball or play
object here.

Captain Putney, Who wrote a book on WW II Marine war dogs has
some pretty interesting comments, formal training was pretty much
a failure, but some of the handlers were more effective on the side.

Great book, by the way:
http://www.amazon.com/Always-Faithful-Memoir-Marine-Dogs/dp/157488719X


----------



## David Winners (Apr 4, 2012)

Jim Engel said:


> Perhaps this will be interesting:
> 
> http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/733469.pdf
> 
> ...


That text is 42 years old. As a rule, military dogs are toy reward regardless of breed. I have experience with Cockers, GSPs, pits, labs, springers, even a labradoodle... all toy reward.


----------



## Jim Engel (Nov 14, 2007)

Yes, I understand exactly, I put the article up as a point in history,
I should have said that directly.
Sorry for any confusion.




David Winners said:


> That text is 42 years old. As a rule, military dogs are toy reward regardless of breed. I have experience with Cockers, GSPs, pits, labs, springers, even a labradoodle... all toy reward.


----------



## Jan Wensink (Sep 17, 2010)

All our dogs are rewarded with a toy. As a Customs officer I often have to inspect containers and shipments of food such as meat, fish, cocoa, bananas etc. I now have a dog that absolutely ignores the food when he's working and I would not feel comfortable with a dog that is food rewarded. Maybe a food reward dog can make that switch too but I find it hard to believe.


----------



## Nancy Jocoy (Apr 19, 2006)

I think by and large you are more likely to find a dog with the right working drives that is toy driven because that is what is being bred.

I have seen food dogs that were trustworthy around human remains-- and often food is hidden as distracters, just as we put out random toys. The dogs do not only eat during training just as my toy dog gets to play fetch at other times (though I reserve tug for work). Most the foodies I know get special smelly treats for work and blah blah food for sustenance. The food driven dog I had would not stop eating when she was full. The others would.

I have been told explosives training is more like cadaver in a lot of negative searches, long durations etc but I don't know. Searching 20 acres is different than searching a row of lockers. I am more concerned about having a dog that will hunt independently than its reward system. That said, I am grateful to have a toy driven dog even if my rotator cuffs are not as it makes training easier.


----------



## Barry Connell (Jul 25, 2010)

Jan Wensink said:


> All our dogs are rewarded with a toy. As a Customs officer I often have to inspect containers and shipments of food such as meat, fish, cocoa, bananas etc. I now have a dog that absolutely ignores the food when he's working and I would not feel comfortable with a dog that is food rewarded. Maybe a food reward dog can make that switch too but I find it hard to believe.


Any dog is trained to locate (and consume) food since their very first day of life. Why do you not feel comfortable with a dog being rewarded with food (away from source) for locating a completely different odor?

DISCLAIMER: Simply a question for anyone to evoke open thought and discussion, NOT an attack on you opinion.....


----------



## Brian McQuain (Oct 21, 2009)

Jan Wensink said:


> All our dogs are rewarded with a toy. As a Customs officer I often have to inspect containers and shipments of food such as meat, fish, cocoa, bananas etc. I now have a dog that absolutely ignores the food when he's working and I would not feel comfortable with a dog that is food rewarded. Maybe a food reward dog can make that switch too but I find it hard to believe.


There's a narc dog in training here that is rewarded with food, and has no problem ignoring the treat bag filled with the same treats she gets for finding the target odor. I don't foresee her having any issues coming upon other foods while searching either.


----------



## Jan Wensink (Sep 17, 2010)

Barry Connell said:


> Any dog is trained to locate (and consume) food since their very first day of life. Why do you not feel comfortable with a dog being rewarded with food (away from source) for locating a completely different odor?
> 
> DISCLAIMER: Simply a question for anyone to evoke open thought and discussion, NOT an attack on you opinion.....


Maybe you're right. We have no experience with adult food rewarded dogs. We always select metal retrievers. In our system we use scented metal tubes to teach a dog a scent.We have the feeling that those dogs have a little extra. We also want the handlers to reward from the source for it is an easy system to teach and to maintain. 
I love a dog that is totally committed to its job and for me a food reward just doesn't fit.


----------



## David Winners (Apr 4, 2012)

Nancy Jocoy said:


> I think by and large you are more likely to find a dog with the right working drives that is toy driven because that is what is being bred.
> 
> I have seen food dogs that were trustworthy around human remains-- and often food is hidden as distracters, just as we put out random toys. The dogs do not only eat during training just as my toy dog gets to play fetch at other times (though I reserve tug for work). Most the foodies I know get special smelly treats for work and blah blah food for sustenance. The food driven dog I had would not stop eating when she was full. The others would.
> 
> I have been told explosives training is more like cadaver in a lot of negative searches, long durations etc but I don't know. Searching 20 acres is different than searching a row of lockers. I am more concerned about having a dog that will hunt independently than its reward system. That said, I am grateful to have a toy driven dog even if my rotator cuffs are not as it makes training easier.


I agree that hunt drive is necessary for independent and dedicated searching. I believe the dog can learn that the only way to access the reward, be it food or toy, is through odor.

Here is one of Mike's videos where a 14 week old dog is showing great discrimination, impulse control and restraint. This dog knows how to access the reward because of solid training. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8VRcWDQELUI

Though there are some EDDs that only conduct building or vehicle searches, don't assume all EDDs conduct simple 5 minute searches. I feel that area search is area search, regardless of what odor the dog is searching for. There are EDDs that search for great distances, cover huge open areas and work for long hours every day. 

No lockers here, and it's 102 degrees with no shade:


----------



## Jon Harris (Nov 23, 2011)

a normal EDD shift in Afghanistan at the FOB I was at was 12 hours. That was split between 4 dog teams. Normal day was 2 to 300 eighteen wheelers searched. The searches were pretty much constant so that was a lot more than a few minutes or a line of lockers.

As for narcotics I had the only narc dog on the fob and searches included all the trucks, same 2-300 and then the personnel entry area (open area) about 75 meters wide by 1/2 mile.

This was normal daily stuff There was lots more that just came up. Toy rewarded


----------



## Meg O'Donovan (Aug 20, 2012)

Jon, how long did each dog work before it got its rest (and how long for rest period, approx?). 

How many hours total of that 12-hour shift would the dog be working its nose? 

Did you look for signs in fatigue in the dog, or did you rest the dog at set, regular intervals?

If the dog showed signs of getting tired, what were those signs?

What factors do you think had the most impact on how long the dog could work its nose before getting tired? 
(E.g. heat, dust, wind, noise?)

What kind of factors made for the least fatigue in the dog (mental and/or physical fatigue)? E.g. best case scenarios.

I'd guess that the "frontier" situations may show the far limits of what a dog can do in sustained sniffing.


----------



## Jon Harris (Nov 23, 2011)

well for us it took time to get the dogs worked up to the stamina it took to do the job. We did at least an hour of exercise a day Basically either a hour or so walking or running with them After a couple weeks the dogs were in much better physical shape then when we first got in country. This is normal.

Search was constant. each team worked a 6 hour shift detection and then came the obedience/exercise.
we did bite work on the weekends.

each team would search 4 trucks, the next four was by the other team and then they switched back. This was all day as the vehicles never stopped. that was the edd teams

as for me i could do the soak lot with 2- 300 trucks in a couple hours straight. My dog was push button after a couple months Ive never had such a good dog before or since.

for edd we would watch ( mainly me as I was the supervisor) to make sure the dog was not dragging and still searching. EDD search finds are far and few between so we would use a drop aid on a cleared vehicle that i would setup to bring the focus back in the dog if it was dragging.

as for narc work like i did you hope to find stuff and we always did. i averaged 30-40 finds a day
the gratifying thing is after searching for hours my dog would find something sometimes on one of the last few trucks. that told me even though we were both tired he was still searching.

sometimes when we were just walking later in the day he would pull off to the side and damn if we wouldn't find a little packet of stuff hidden in the bushes close to where one of the shuttle buses stopped.

the end point is we were not in a position to say " hey my dog is tired, shut everything down" we had to keep them working

attached is a picture of the truck lot i used to search for drugs. this is only about a third of the lot


----------



## scott zimmerman (Dec 7, 2009)

David Winners said:


> That text is 42 years old. As a rule, military dogs are toy reward regardless of breed. I have experience with Cockers, GSPs, pits, labs, springers, even a labradoodle... all toy reward.


 
I know that place well, Dave! Spent a great deal of time over the years there! Personally, I couldn't imagine working a straight food reward dog once he is finished. I can see where food reward can be advantageous with puppies and use it quite frequently myself when teaching puppies obedience but to have to work an adult finished dog on food reward for detection to me would be a pain in the ass!


----------



## mike suttle (Feb 19, 2008)

Jan Wensink said:


> Maybe you're right. We have no experience with adult food rewarded dogs. We always select metal retrievers. In our system we use scented metal tubes to teach a dog a scent.We have the feeling that those dogs have a little extra. We also want the handlers to reward from the source for it is an easy system to teach and to maintain.
> I love a dog that is totally committed to its job and for me a food reward just doesn't fit.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8VRcWDQELUI
Hi Jan, I also llike metal retrievers and only buy dogs that are very strong on metal when we are testing. But I still do a lot of our detection training with food. Many of our dogs have such a strong desire for a toy that it often makes training difficult. We use food because it allows the dogs to think and we can get many more repetitions than with a ball. It has been my experience that if a dog is properly trained with food, he will totally ignore food better than a toy reward dog will that has been trained using traditional methods. Our dogs learn from about 6 weeks old to ignore all food in order to get a reward. Here is a video of a 14 week old puppy ignoring a bowl full of hot dogs as he searches for target odor (in this case explosives).This puppy would later ignore hamburgers and hot dogs left lying on the ground when he was told to search. At no point in his life was he ever corrected or even given a punishment marker for trying to eat food. In our system they learn that they must ignore food and only find target odor in order to be rewarded.
We use food later when the dog is finished, but I would have no trouble using food for the rest of the dogs life. For me it is about selecting the right dog with the appropriate search drive, the reward of not an issue, but for sure with the system we use, I can fine tune what I want much better with food.


----------



## Jon Harris (Nov 23, 2011)

video is great I see a line of the dutch boxes in the video also, looks like a dog trained like Randy Hare trains. complete focus no matter what


----------



## Jan Wensink (Sep 17, 2010)

mike suttle said:


> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8VRcWDQELUI
> Hi Jan, I also llike metal retrievers and only buy dogs that are very strong on metal when we are testing. But I still do a lot of our detection training with food. Many of our dogs have such a strong desire for a toy that it often makes training difficult. We use food because it allows the dogs to think and we can get many more repetitions than with a ball. It has been my experience that if a dog is properly trained with food, he will totally ignore food better than a toy reward dog will that has been trained using traditional methods. Our dogs learn from about 6 weeks old to ignore all food in order to get a reward. Here is a video of a 14 week old puppy ignoring a bowl full of hot dogs as he searches for target odor (in this case explosives).This puppy would later ignore hamburgers and hot dogs left lying on the ground when he was told to search. At no point in his life was he ever corrected or even given a punishment marker for trying to eat food. In our system they learn that they must ignore food and only find target odor in order to be rewarded.
> We use food later when the dog is finished, but I would have no trouble using food for the rest of the dogs life. For me it is about selecting the right dog with the appropriate search drive, the reward of not an issue, but for sure with the system we use, I can fine tune what I want much better with food.


Hi Mike, the reason that I'm hesitant about food rewarded dogs is that I've seen dogs in airport lounges and searching on shipments of food that were so distracted they were not reliable.
Do you use your system also for adult dogs that you bought or only for ypur pup?. 
We only buy adult dog. We don't have the facilities and staff to house puppies and the chances of wash-outs are too big.
I know how Dick Staal's nethod works. He trains with food and toys and at a certain moment the dogs prefer the toy over the food.
Testing a dog usually has to be done during a short period of time. At that moment many dogs are not crazy enough about this searching game to ignore strong food distractors. Si I think it's hard to be sure at that moment.
We do use food and other distractors during basic training and testing of certified dogs. We use PVC tubes on a wooden base a bit like you have and a carroussel. Most mornings we do a few runs on these tubes or the carroussel before going to warehouses etc for further training. 
In six of them we place blank or scented cotton distractor pads or steel tubes. In the seventh is a scent the dog is trained to find.


----------



## Alison Grubb (Nov 18, 2009)

Great thread and discussion!

I am somewhat surprised that the ATF strictly uses food rewards. I've certified a number of dogs through ATF and every one used a Kong reward; using food was never even mentioned. Granted those dogs were not going to ATF for end use but were being imprinted on odors they would find out of country that we were not licensed to store so that is probably why we used a different reward system. Asking to work a dog off leash though...that will get a response. LOL

I have a young (total pet quality) pup that I am going to play around with with food rewards and odor detection. He's my guinea pig for a few new methods I want to try out. Maybe I will share videos here.


----------



## David Winners (Apr 4, 2012)

Alison Grubb said:


> Great thread and discussion!
> 
> I am somewhat surprised that the ATF strictly uses food rewards. I've certified a number of dogs through ATF and every one used a Kong reward; using food was never even mentioned. Granted those dogs were not going to ATF for end use but were being imprinted on odors they would find out of country that we were not licensed to store so that is probably why we used a different reward system. Asking to work a dog off leash though...that will get a response. LOL
> 
> I have a young (total pet quality) pup that I am going to play around with with food rewards and odor detection. He's my guinea pig for a few new methods I want to try out. Maybe I will share videos here.


The cert for peroxide based HME (HMTD & TATP) is conducted by ATF. That's probably what you were doing? When we do it, they do a 1 day imprinting, and then certify the next day. The ATF trainers are there, but they just set up the venues and then certify the dogs the following day. 

At the last ATF cert I did, the ATFs demo dog false responded 4 times on distractors in paint cans. It looked pretty bad.

David Winners


----------



## mike suttle (Feb 19, 2008)

Jan Wensink said:


> Hi Mike, the reason that I'm hesitant about food rewarded dogs is that I've seen dogs in airport lounges and searching on shipments of food that were so distracted they were not reliable.
> Do you use your system also for adult dogs that you bought or only for ypur pup?.
> We only buy adult dog. We don't have the facilities and staff to house puppies and the chances of wash-outs are too big.
> I know how Dick Staal's nethod works. He trains with food and toys and at a certain moment the dogs prefer the toy over the food.
> ...


all of our puppies are imprinted on odor with food reward because we start them at an age too young to even use a toy (usually 4-5 weeks). When they get older we will use a toy for most of them, but they all learn to ignore food while they are in the food reward training stage. They also learn to ignore toys and other strong distractors as well.


----------



## Jerry Ross (Jan 10, 2014)

Kong or ball reinforcement lends to causing a hyper state of excitation. This hyper state is found by some to be undesirable, especially when dealing with Explosive Detection. This is because of the possibility of booby traps and other triggers built into the device. Food of course, does not bring this same baggage. The decision is mostly up to the trainer and trainer's preference and philosophy varies greatly. Hyper dogs do not search as well as a calm, determined worker.


----------



## David Winners (Apr 4, 2012)

Jerry Ross said:


> Kong or ball reinforcement lends to causing a hyper state of excitation. This hyper state is found by some to be undesirable, especially when dealing with Explosive Detection. This is because of the possibility of booby traps and other triggers built into the device. Food of course, does not bring this same baggage. The decision is mostly up to the trainer and trainer's preference and philosophy varies greatly. Hyper dogs do not search as well as a calm, determined worker.


Have you found that the calm searching behavior is a product of age? Or do you attribute it solely to reward choice? 

You feel the same dog will search in a different manner based solely on choice of reward?



David Winners


----------



## Jan Wensink (Sep 17, 2010)

Jerry Ross said:


> Kong or ball reinforcement lends to causing a hyper state of excitation. This hyper state is found by some to be undesirable, especially when dealing with Explosive Detection. This is because of the possibility of booby traps and other triggers built into the device. Food of course, does not bring this same baggage. The decision is mostly up to the trainer and trainer's preference and philosophy varies greatly. Hyper dogs do not search as well as a calm, determined worker.


I think hyper is often mistaken with drive but if a hyper dog has good drives I wouldn't hesitate to select it. Some of our best dogs are really hyper. All it takes is a good handler and proper training. 
We don't train a passive response often but for dogs like these we do to force it into moments of concentration and calmness. Maybe it's not the dog you would choose for an EDD for that duty only the best should be selected. 
What I see is that dogs often have a somewhat more difficult "out" with a softer reward than with a hard one.


----------



## Nancy Jocoy (Apr 19, 2006)

I was just handed a piece of hard rubber heater hose to use as a reward because my tug is too soft and I am having outing problems.


----------



## Jan Wensink (Sep 17, 2010)

David Winners said:


> Have you found that the calm searching behavior is a product of age? Or do you attribute it solely to reward choice?
> 
> You feel the same dog will search in a different manner based solely on choice of reward?
> 
> David Winners


I don't believe the reward will make the difference. Some dogs have that calm searching behavior by nature and a lot of dogs can ce trained to search calmly. Some breeds such as GSD's often have that calm and precise searching. 
When you pick the wrong retward a dog might lose his enthusiasm for the game. Maybe he still likes the searching but walks away from the source. 
When a dog is extremely crazy about his toy it could make a good search difficult. A difficult "out" or very wild play couls make it difficult to do a good search.


----------



## David Winners (Apr 4, 2012)

Jan Wensink said:


> I don't believe the reward will make the difference. Some dogs have that calm searching behavior by nature and a lot of dogs can ce trained to search calmly. Some breeds such as GSD's often have that calm and precise searching.
> When you pick the wrong retward a dog might lose his enthusiasm for the game. Maybe he still likes the searching but walks away from the source.
> When a dog is extremely crazy about his toy it could make a good search difficult. A difficult "out" or very wild play couls make it difficult to do a good search.


I don't believe the reward will make searching hectic, which is why I posed the question to Mr Ross.

I disagree that, " When a dog is extremely crazy about his toy it could make a good search difficult. A difficult "out" or very wild play couls make it difficult to do a good search."

I think the search and reward are separate events. As long as you avoid a bunch of conflict with the dog, I see no problem with an exuberant reward session at all.

IMHO, with good out training, this is never a problem. Even without good out training, most dogs can be choked off the toy and put right back to work. I have yet to see a dog so crazy for a toy that it wouldn't search when properly trained to do so. In fact, I see quite the opposite.

I'm interested in what methods you use to teach calm searching, specifically in a hectic dog. Can you describe this?

I have found that calm searching happens with exposure to longer searches, which allows the dog to settle in and calm down after the initial excitement of having the opportunity to work. I also believe the novelty of searching wears off after a time, lowering the excitement level of the dog, without lowering the value of the search or the reward.

David Winners


----------



## Nancy Jocoy (Apr 19, 2006)

Don't have anything to add about dogs needing different reward systems and think there are toy driven dogs who have no desire to hunt and it is that, not the reward system, is the issue. A dog that is hard-wired to hunt, will hunt.

I can comment on slowing a toy driven dog down a bit.

For HRD, outside area, two things have helped me keep it calm, but it is not training it.

(1) training more often with small amounts of dry bone which holds scent lower to the ground and requires more focused searching (got that from Jim who starts his pups with teeth)
(2) breaking the dog before work, a little obedience and calm orienting cues; not ramping the dog up
(3) throwing out the first few minutes of wild abandon and only "counting" the work when he settles into a pace and has searching body language


----------



## Jan Wensink (Sep 17, 2010)

David Winners said:


> I don't believe the reward will make searching hectic, which is why I posed the question to Mr Ross.
> 
> I disagree that, " When a dog is extremely crazy about his toy it could make a good search difficult. A difficult "out" or very wild play couls make it difficult to do a good search."
> 
> ...


----------



## ravi nambiar (Aug 29, 2012)

dogs work more scent detection repetitions for food rewards.today, the type of explosive IED's are so sophisticated that it is imperative that no extra movement be carried out in the suspected area once the IED is detected by the dog.
however, the food rewards have to be faded out and substituted with verbal and physical praise before the dog is fit for operational deployment.


----------



## Jan Wensink (Sep 17, 2010)

ravi nambiar said:


> dogs work more scent detection repetitions for food rewards.
> *That may be true but when you work boxes, a wall or a carroussel regularly you can have enough repetitions with a toy reward too. EDD training has to be a very thorough job and can not be rushed.
> Imprinting won't be a problem.
> 
> ...


*My dog and most dogs we train would never keep working like they do with only verbal and physical praise. Of course you can't reward from source with a toy in an operational situation but verbal or physical praise near the source are not clever either. 
I would not reward the dog in a real time situation or I would mark his behavior and reward him away from the source. *


----------



## Nancy Jocoy (Apr 19, 2006)

So here is a question on this. The person who started us with training cadaver dogs trained EDD for the military and later helped train dog handlers for airports post 9-11. 

He always started his dogs with toys containing primary odor and got them hunting, then started making the toys inaccessible and had an aggressive alert which he transitioned over to passive by making only passive "pay" He said he staked his life on that dog maintaining a passive alert. Of course since then I have seen more things (like Loganhaus) perhaps lean towards passive from the start. In this person's training food was not used. I did start current dog same way but a "slip" on a cadaver dog is not the same as a "slip" on an EDD dog but it really has not been a problem for us. I have found food useful for many reps of something new (like building muscle memory for the process of detailing a car or anything that requires a lot of repetitions in short order)

Don't want to split the question but rewarding during an actual search also seems to be something I have seen split opinions on by LE. Some do, some don't. For cadaver we don't but then variable rewards, setting up success afterwards and before, etc. -- guess that is a whole 'nother topic.


----------



## Jan Wensink (Sep 17, 2010)

Nancy Jocoy said:


> So here is a question on this. The person who started us with training cadaver dogs trained EDD for the military and later helped train dog handlers for airports post 9-11.
> 
> He always started his dogs with toys containing primary odor and got them hunting, then started making the toys inaccessible and had an aggressive alert which he transitioned over to passive by making only passive "pay" He said he staked his life on that dog maintaining a passive alert. Of course since then I have seen more things (like Loganhaus) perhaps lean towards passive from the start. In this person's training food was not used. I did start current dog same way but a "slip" on a cadaver dog is not the same as a "slip" on an EDD dog but it really has not been a problem for us. I have found food useful for many reps of something new (like building muscle memory for the process of detailing a car or anything that requires a lot of repetitions in short order)
> 
> Don't want to split the question but rewarding during an actual search also seems to be something I have seen split opinions on by LE. Some do, some don't. For cadaver we don't but then variable rewards, setting up success afterwards and before, etc. -- guess that is a whole 'nother topic.


 What I said before about rewarding in a real situation was about an EDD dog. With drug dogs most handlers here will give the dog verbal praise, bring the dog to the car, find the drugs themselves. Than they would deploy the dog again and reward.
The first weeks of training we usually let the dogs retrieve the scented tube or hide it in an accessible way. We don't ask aan alert and only want to make the dog enthusiastic for the game. Than we hide toys or real drugs in an inaccessible way and train a bark or passive alert. We noticed that the dogs (temporary) lose their spirit for the job if we start with a passive alert right away. Maybe that has to do with our reward, a stainless steel tube.
I think our training is a little longer than is usual in the USA. About 4 months for a drug dog, 6 months for a passive drug dog who searches people for drugs. Time enough to imprint the scents.


----------

