# Concepts and meanings



## Hugo Forno (Apr 15, 2009)

A lot of discussions arise because people do not know the meaning of the words/expressions or do not use the words/expressions technically; sometimes words/expressions are synonymous, but are used to mean different things. Even sometimes different people use the same word/expression to mean different ideas. So I would like to know what do these words mean for you; and which is the connection among them:

Defense drive behavior; weak nerve; threshold; suspicious to stranger; lack of balance; anger; fear (fear biter); cowardice; braveness, balance, confidence.

Thanks,

hugo


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## Dave Colborn (Mar 25, 2009)

Defense drive behavior-How a dog reacts to a threat. Fight, Flight, or Displacement

Weak nerve- A dog that has great change in his ability when encountering new environments and situations.

Threshold - a doorway

Suspicious to stranger- Neither weak or strong, just shows more alertness to a stranger compared to without a stranger there.

lack of balance - Falls repeatedly on a dog walk

anger - no such thing in a dog

fear - defensive reaction to a threat. From minor growling, cutting eyes, grip shift, to full blown run.

cowardice- No such thing in a dog

braveness- no such thing

balance - doesn't fall on dog walk or agility equipment.

confidence - dog walks into new environments and encounters new things with no noticeable change.


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## Connie Sutherland (Mar 27, 2006)

_"Threshold - a doorway"_


More specifically, that bottom part of the doorway (like a "door sill")







:lol:


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## David Frost (Mar 29, 2006)

Connie Sutherland said:


> _"Threshold - a doorway"_
> 
> 
> More specifically, that bottom part of the doorway (like a "door sill")
> ...


In detection class, I teach what we call the "absolute threshold". It does have a scientific base. 

The absolute threshold, for training purposes, is the point of recognition of an odor to which the dog has been trained to respond. (Canine Manual, page 4-3) We refer to it as the AT on the sensing spectrum. 

dFrost


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## Brian Anderson (Dec 2, 2010)

All that stuff does is muddy the waters. In the end it boils down to a few key things. The dog can do it or not. Plain and simple. 

Nerve - he either has it or not

Fight - he either has it or not

ps. Dogs dont have the capacity for emotional responses ie love, hatred, anger etc.


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## Maren Bell Jones (Jun 7, 2006)

Brian Anderson said:


> ps. Dogs dont have the capacity for emotional responses ie love, hatred, anger etc.


I disagree. While they not be as complicated as human emotions, I believe dogs exhibit some complicated emotions in a similar fashion as humans. They are not wind up creations a la Rene Descartes. I recommend For Love of a Dog by Patricia McConnell PhD for more on this topic.


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## Dave Colborn (Mar 25, 2009)

David Frost said:


> In detection class, I teach what we call the "absolute threshold". It does have a scientific base.
> 
> The absolute threshold, for training purposes, is the point of recognition of an odor to which the dog has been trained to respond. (Canine Manual, page 4-3) We refer to it as the AT on the sensing spectrum.
> 
> dFrost



Sure. and there is an avoidance threshold, and a defense threshold.


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## Peter Cavallaro (Dec 1, 2010)

Did u guys notice in the recent swedish army temp test vid thing, the test for hunt drive was throwing a ball in a large open room and bouncing it off a wall etc. while the prey test was hiding the ball under a wooden crate thing???

typos/editing or different definitions than standard, 

lol like their is standard definitions.


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## David Frost (Mar 29, 2006)

Dave Colborn said:


> Sure. and there is an avoidance threshold, and a defense threshold.


All senses have a threshold. My view of "defense" though isn't all that accepted, so I'll stay out of that part of the discussion, ha ha.

DFrost


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## Dave Colborn (Mar 25, 2009)

David Frost said:


> All senses have a threshold. My view of "defense" though isn't all that accepted, so I'll stay out of that part of the discussion, ha ha.
> 
> DFrost



I'd like to hear it. May even be different than my view. I might learn something.


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## rick smith (Dec 31, 2010)

Hugo, you are a lawyer, right ?
who wanted to hire a human mother to protect rather than a dog, etc., right ?

maybe that's why i had a hard time getting thru the first sentence 

but what about this one :
- "So I would like to know what do these words mean for you; and which is the connection among them" ??

so, you not only want the terms defined, but also wanna know what is the connection between each ??

maybe that's why if you ask what balance means you get physical definitions as well as mental ones
- my very unbalanced hybrid has very good balance, but he generally gets the job done - does that make sense to you ?

i see this thread going nowhere unless you tell us the method to your madness, and i don't mean that in the "legal sense" ](*,)

sorry for the sarcasm, but i've been dealing with people all day rather than dogs .... rotf


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## Brian Anderson (Dec 2, 2010)

Maren Bell Jones said:


> I disagree. While they not be as complicated as human emotions, I believe dogs exhibit some complicated emotions in a similar fashion as humans. They are not wind up creations a la Rene Descartes. I recommend For Love of a Dog by Patricia McConnell PhD for more on this topic.


Maren your way more studied than I on these matters. But I have nearly 33 years living and working with these dogs. That is quite a bit of anecdotal evidence to base an opinion. And its JMHO lol 

Im not sure what a la rene descartes is .... sounds like an ice cream dessert or sumpin lol


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## rick smith (Dec 31, 2010)

canine emotions are more interesting than the OP.....

my dog has NEVER licked my face ... but other people say he loves me

another dog i lived with three months licked my face every day, but would try to rip the fingers off my hands if i petted him when he was laying down ..... owner thought that dog loved me too :-(

humans and canines : different brains, different emotions based on VERY different grey matter, so what would anyone accomplish by trying to compare them except sell more books ??


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## Don Turnipseed (Oct 8, 2006)

Canine emotions. They like you or dislike you. They will work for you or not. Balanced dogs chase towels on ropes so trainers can tell if they have real drive. 

Another term that is really confusing is "trained dog". Is a dog trained if he can't do what he is supposedly "trained" to do on say, on a different field, with a different decoy, maybe on a different day. Have most terms become meaningless. A dog "actually trained" to retrieve, will retrieve anything, anywhere, anytime, it is told.


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## Jim Delbridge (Jan 27, 2010)

David,
Unless you know the exact concentration of the scent at the point the dog detects it (which I've never been able to determine), isn't this a subjective term? (scent threshold)

this goes into the belief that dogs only trained on a little pot will stop tens of yards away to alert to a bail. There are also trainers that think dogs only trained on small human remains sources will balk at a whole body. I've yet to observe this in dogs that I've worked with. Maybe I've just been lucky.

Issues I do see are dogs trained for small skeletal remains can alert in pool when presented with a large wet human remains source (large again being subjective). Oddly enough, the way I have to solve this is go back to training the "hard to target" subtle sources to reinforce to the dog that they must get as close to the scent source as possible. Do you see this in your scent work?


Jim


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## will fernandez (May 17, 2006)

Don Turnipseed said:


> Canine emotions. They like you or dislike you. They will work for you or not. Balanced dogs chase towels on ropes so trainers can tell if they have real drive.
> 
> Another term that is really confusing is "trained dog". Is a dog trained if he can't do what he is supposedly "trained" to do on say, on a different field, with a different decoy, maybe on a different day. Have most terms become meaningless. A dog "actually trained" to retrieve, will retrieve anything, anywhere, anytime, it is told.


If a hunting dog cant catch, bay or retrieve is it still a hunting dog?


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## Skip Morgart (Dec 19, 2008)

Just my 2 cents...but I think you will get a huge variance in how people will define those terms. It will probably be interesting reading, but I doubt there will be a real concensus reached. Personally, I think some people get way too hung up on the terminology.


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## Don Turnipseed (Oct 8, 2006)

will fernandez said:


> If a hunting dog cant catch, bay or retrieve is it still a hunting dog?


Will, retrieving has nothing to do with hunting. It is a scenario taught for for man's convenience. How the dog responds after the find is open to interpretation because the find is what constitutes the hunt. Now, if the dog lacks the drive to search for what can't be seen, it is culled. Can't train desire in a dog.


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## Gillian Schuler (Apr 12, 2008)

Brian Anderson said:


> All that stuff does is muddy the waters. In the end it boils down to a few key things. The dog can do it or not. Plain and simple.
> 
> Nerve - he either has it or not
> 
> ...


I agree wholeheartedly. The rest is for the Internet discussions.


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## Hugo Forno (Apr 15, 2009)

rick smith said:


> Hugo, you are a lawyer, right ?
> who wanted to hire a human mother to protect rather than a dog, etc., right ?
> 
> maybe that's why i had a hard time getting thru the first sentence
> ...


Well, I am trying to understand to a certain extent what things really mean and how they work in general terms. 

A. For example:

1. Is it the same lack of balance than weak nerves?

2.	Is it the same lack of balance than lack of confidence?

Or they are not the same but are connected.

B. For example:

1.	When a dog reacts in defense is it because he is fear? 
2.	If a dog is suspicious to strangers, is it because he is lack of confidence? 
3.	If a dog is guarding a territory and a stranger approaches to the fence and the dog goes straight to the fence, is it because the dog has weak nerves? Is he fear? Can you say that a dog acting that way is confident?
4.	If a dog reacts when a stranger approaches to 20 fts. and another reacts only when the stranger approaches only to 15 fts., that means that the first one has more confidence, is more balanced and has stronger nerves than the second? 
5.	In situation of number 4 above, does it mean that the first dog has lower threshold regarding his defense drive?
6.	Etc.

I know that the things are much more complicate than that but let’s try to do it.

hugo


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## rick smith (Dec 31, 2010)

Hugo
imo you could probably restate all these questions under the category of "how do i read the dog" ? three people watching might have three different opinions

and whenever you say "reacts" it means nothing on a keyboard without seeing the dog's total body language and posture, not to mention whether that "reaction" is vocal or silent, and it would also help to see the environment around the dog as it is happening, etc

imo, would be just as hard to "judge the dog" based on short video clip unless it has MAJOR issues

so, do you have a particular dog that is having problems that you need help with, or doing all this that you need opinions about, or just trying to learn how to read dogs better online (which i think is impossible) ?


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## David Frost (Mar 29, 2006)

Jim Delbridge said:


> David,
> Unless you know the exact concentration of the scent at the point the dog detects it (which I've never been able to determine), isn't this a subjective term? (scent threshold)
> 
> this goes into the belief that dogs only trained on a little pot will stop tens of yards away to alert to a bail. There are also trainers that think dogs only trained on small human remains sources will balk at a whole body. I've yet to observe this in dogs that I've worked with. Maybe I've just been lucky.
> ...


It's factual in a laboratory, observable in actual situations. Let me explain. Do you agree that there is a point, during a search that a dog will detect the odor he is looking for? Do you agree that the, once recognizing that odor, the dog will physically display a different searching behavior, ie more intense, more focused etc? If so, then that is what I'm describing. That first point a dog detects an odor it is trained to find. That point is also different for each dog. 

I teach that a dog finds source (the strongest point of odor) by looking for a stronger level of that odor, once it's detected. If not, then dogs would be responding the minute an odor was recognized. It's an observable behavior. How many times have we stood back and said; you can tell the dog is working something, or watching the dog work what we call brackets. 

I have seen dogs trained on smaller amounts overwhelmed by the presence of an extremely large amount. Recently, we had the opportunity to search an area that contained several thousand pounds of explosives. It was easy to see the dog was working odor, but there was so much the dog had reached the point of saturation, or that point where he could not tell the difference between weaker odor and stronger odor. In other words, it all smelled the same. Make sense?

DFrost


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## Dave Colborn (Mar 25, 2009)

Brian Anderson said:


> All that stuff does is muddy the waters. In the end it boils down to a few key things. The dog can do it or not. Plain and simple.
> 
> Nerve - he either has it or not
> 
> ...



By your idea of the dog can do it or not, you remove the need for any terms at all. Then nerve and fight don't even matter. Can the dog do x,y or z in the manner you want him to. If not find another dog.


And, you still haven't defined fight or nerve. The OP had a question and you just muddied the waters by saying definitions are not needed, and then using the term fight and nerve without defining them. What does have nerve mean, and what does fight mean? 

communication. that's what all the words and definitions are about.


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## Nicole Stark (Jul 22, 2009)

David Frost said:


> It's factual in a laboratory, observable in actual situations. Let me explain. Do you agree that there is a point, during a search that a dog will detect the odor he is looking for? Do you agree that the, once recognizing that odor, the dog will physically display a different searching behavior, ie more intense, more focused etc? If so, then that is what I'm describing. That first point a dog detects an odor it is trained to find. That point is also different for each dog.
> DFrost


David, I thought your statement concerning this was interesting. I didn't realize there was a term for it and also I wasn't sure if you were generalizing or of you meant something more specific so I wanted to post a video that I think shows what you are talking about (at .56 into the video). Is this the behavioral change you were speaking of?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YUr6EL6YIZg


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## Dave Colborn (Mar 25, 2009)

Nicole Stark said:


> David, I thought your statement concerning this was interesting. I didn't realize there was a term for it and also I wasn't sure if you were generalizing or of you meant something more specific so I wanted to post a video that I think shows what you are talking about (at .56 into the video). Is this the behavioral change you were speaking of?
> 
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YUr6EL6YIZg


Nice video. David is reciting a lot of information from dog school at lackland. I'll see if I can find a copy of my manual for Block II (detection) wikipedia has a lot of information on the terms as well.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Absolute_threshold

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just-noticeable_difference

JND is significant in dog training in going from the AT to source of the odor or where the dog is saturated. Again. lots of terms that go along with detection science. Communication. It's a big deal.

***This isn't a shot at David or Nicole. This is for folks that think terminology and clear commo isn't important.


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## David Frost (Mar 29, 2006)

Nicole Stark said:


> I think shows what you are talking about (at .56 into the video). Is this the behavioral change you were speaking of?
> 
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YUr6EL6YIZg



That's a perfect example of a couple of at least three behaviors.

1. The hunt. That is certainly a behavior. While it's an innate behavior we select the dogs for, you've taken advantage of it and trained it for a certain object.

2. The threshold was clearly evident at .56 like you said. Up to that point, the dog was searching. At that point there was a distinct change of behavior. The hunt became more intense. That more intense hunt demonstrated the both the scent cone and looking for that next strongest odor, which the dog has learned will lead him to source. 

Great video. Thanks for posting. 

DFrost


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## David Frost (Mar 29, 2006)

Dave Colborn said:


> Nice video. David is reciting a lot of information from dog school at lackland. I'll see if I can find a copy of my manual for Block II (detection) wikipedia has a lot of information on the terms as well.
> 
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Absolute_threshold
> 
> ...


I absolutely am. I use it for a number of reasons. it makes sense. It's logical. It's based on science. It it particularly explanatory when making a presentation in court. It adds the credence of the Department of Defense Dog School. While that may not mean a lot to a bunch of dog trainers, it means a lot to a jury. Being able to explain why and how a dog does what it does, in terms that can be explained, makes it seem a lot less like smoke and mirrors. 

Yes sir. I teach the whole spectrum. Just like it was written back in the 70's. 

DFrost


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## Jim Delbridge (Jan 27, 2010)

David Frost said:


> It's factual in a laboratory, observable in actual situations. Let me explain. Do you agree that there is a point, during a search that a dog will detect the odor he is looking for? Do you agree that the, once recognizing that odor, the dog will physically display a different searching behavior, ie more intense, more focused etc? If so, then that is what I'm describing. That first point a dog detects an odor it is trained to find. That point is also different for each dog.
> 
> I teach that a dog finds source (the strongest point of odor) by looking for a stronger level of that odor, once it's detected. If not, then dogs would be responding the minute an odor was recognized. It's an observable behavior. How many times have we stood back and said; you can tell the dog is working something, or watching the dog work what we call brackets.
> 
> ...


Yup, it's easy to tell when a dog is in scent as they send out so many signs. I recently attended a lecture where this was called "the alert". When the dog decides it has found the source then it performs (what some call) "the final trained alert" or (what some call) the "indication," i.e. what we train the dog to do when it makes its decision.

Now, I can sympathize with your example of the explosives warehouse as I got the opportunity (and permission) to work an ancient native american burial mound known to be full of remains. The dogs could be seen to glaze over as they realized scent was everywhere. They would then seek out locations of stronger collection of scent which turned out to be depressions in or around the mound. I'm pretty sure mass graves will demonstrate the same phenomena.

So, what would the majority of the dogs do in the warehouse if pushed to make a decision?

Jim


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## David Frost (Mar 29, 2006)

Jim Delbridge said:


> So, what would the majority of the dogs do in the warehouse if pushed to make a decision?
> 
> Jim


The fortunate this is, as trainers we recognize such a situation can happen. If we are fortunate, ie my opportunity with very large quantities of explosives, we avail ourselves of these opportunities.
We train. Then, when push comes to shove, the part of the team with the opposable thumbs, step in and make the decision. ha ha. 

DFrost


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## David Frost (Mar 29, 2006)

Jim Delbridge said:


> Yup, it's easy to tell when a dog is in scent as they send out so many signs. I recently attended a lecture where this was called "the alert". When the dog decides it has found the source then it performs (what some call) "the final trained alert" or (what some call) the "indication," i.e. what we train the dog to do when it makes its decision.


I really dislike calling it an "alert". I teach and use the term "change of behavior". Like in the video that Nicole posted, the dog was searching, which is a behavior. When the dog detected odor, it had a change of behavior that was quite visible in the increase in intensity, then, it retrieved the ball. In this case that was the (I use the term response rather than alert) response to that particular task. It could well have been a passive (sit, down etc) or aggressive (scratch, bark etc) I've found using those terms, particularly in these days of video during court, to be less confusing. I can point out the change of behavior, then I can point out the "response". Less word and terms to be concerned with. 

DFrost


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## Dave Colborn (Mar 25, 2009)

David Frost said:


> I absolutely am. I use it for a number of reasons. it makes sense. It's logical. It's based on science. It it particularly explanatory when making a presentation in court. It adds the credence of the Department of Defense Dog School. While that may not mean a lot to a bunch of dog trainers, it means a lot to a jury. Being able to explain why and how a dog does what it does, in terms that can be explained, makes it seem a lot less like smoke and mirrors.
> 
> Yes sir. I teach the whole spectrum. Just like it was written back in the 70's.
> 
> DFrost


Thanks for that run down, but please don't feel like you owe me an explanation. My thought was I would list the source of your info, and see if I could find my book and scan it in for Nicole, or find it's equal online, as she takes her detection pretty seriously. The block II manual does have lots of good info. Didn't mean to get you all excited agreeing with you...


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## David Frost (Mar 29, 2006)

Nahhh, I just didn't want someone to think I was trying to hide the source. I was there when Doc Craig wrote the stuff into the student study guides. In fact, I still have some of his hand written notes to the first edition of the student study guide and the instructor lesson plans. Of course a lot of what he got was from ole B.F. himself. I really did spend a lot of time at the dog school. Started off as a one-striper dog handler in 1966 and retired as the Superintendent of the DOD Dog School. Which makes me old. chuckle, chuckle

DFrost


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## Connie Sutherland (Mar 27, 2006)

Dave Colborn said:


> Didn't mean to get you all excited agreeing with you...



And don't worry about that. That last feeling was destroyed in a run-in with Ann.



:lol:


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## David Frost (Mar 29, 2006)

Connie Sutherland said:


> And don't worry about that. That last feeling was destroyed in a run-in with Ann.



ha ha, I forgot about that.


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## Don Turnipseed (Oct 8, 2006)

Brian Anderson said:


> All that stuff does is muddy the waters. In the end it boils down to a few key things. The dog can do it or not. Plain and simple.
> 
> Nerve - he either has it or not
> 
> ...


Brian, your views are pretty much the way it once was. The dog could get the job done, or he couldn't. Then came all the middle ground and terms. Excess terminology is always meant to muddy the waters. That is obvious because the same terms have many different things to different people.....which renders them pretty much useless any way.


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## rick smith (Dec 31, 2010)

Don you really crack me up 
re: "Brian, your views are pretty much the way it once was."
>>> correct and that was probably somewhere in the middle ages prior to the industrial revolution 

"The dog could get the job done, or he couldn't."
>>> correct again; either he kept your herd alive or you culled the little bastard - if the predators didn't get him first 

"Then came all the middle ground and terms."
>>> wrong; then came YOUR terms : nerves and fight and ....whatever ...
who cares whether they want to fight the man on the inside or the sleeve on the outside....just DO IT for christsakes or we'll get one that can !!

Excess terminology is always meant to muddy the waters.
>>> correct, this new modern world is just a muddy mess, and dogs are now expected to do a lot more "unnatural" things in the "modern era" of cities and urban living around all those mechanical predators. which btw, is damn hard for them, seeing as how we have continued to warp their genetics for the past few hundred years for our pleasure and enjoyment 

the more i think about it the more sense it makes ... why bother training em in the first place, and why even care about what they might be thinking ? it's all genetics, so if they can't do the job, keep breeding until you get one that can ](*,)


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## Don Turnipseed (Oct 8, 2006)

Rick said


> so if they can't do the job, keep breeding until you get one that can


Not exactly Rick. If you got dogs that can't get the job done, quit both trying to train em and breed em.

Excess termiology came with modern training and trainers don't even agree on the meanings. Didn't used to be like that. There were good dogs and POS dogs. Dogs that couldn't do were put down....not bred.


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## Kadi Thingvall (Jan 22, 2007)

Don Turnipseed said:


> Excess terminology is always meant to muddy the waters.





Don Turnipseed said:


> Excess termiology came with modern training and trainers don't even agree on the meanings. Didn't used to be like that. There were good dogs and POS dogs. Dogs that couldn't do were put down....not bred.


Terminology came about as a way for people to have conversations about things, be it dog training or whatever, with people they can't see face to face, about things they aren't looking at together. Without terminology how are we supposed to even have training discussions on the internet, unless everying is required to post a video with every question they have, and follow up videos for each step of the discussion? It's not meant to muddy the water, but to get people on the same page for a discussion.

When I'm on the internet, the terminology is important otherwise how can I describe a dog that 99% of the people I'm conversing with can't actually see? When I'm talking face to face with someone, and we are looking at the same dog, we drop most of that terminology. Even when we are on the phone talking about a dog one person hasn't seen, we have a pool of dogs to draw from, ie Rover acts like Rex did that one time when ...

I don't think training methods actually have much to do with it, I know "old school" trainers who use terminology when trying to discuss things on the net, via phone, email, etc just like the trainers that use "modern" methods.


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## Don Turnipseed (Oct 8, 2006)

Kadi Thingvall said:


> Terminology came about as a way for people to have conversations about things, be it dog training or whatever, with people they can't see face to face, about things they aren't looking at together. Without terminology how are we supposed to even have training discussions on the internet, unless everying is required to post a video with every question they have, and follow up videos for each step of the discussion? It's not meant to muddy the water, but to get people on the same page for a discussion.
> 
> When I'm on the internet, the terminology is important otherwise how can I describe a dog that 99% of the people I'm conversing with can't actually see? When I'm talking face to face with someone, and we are looking at the same dog, we drop most of that terminology. Even when we are on the phone talking about a dog one person hasn't seen, we have a pool of dogs to draw from, ie Rover acts like Rex did that one time when ...
> 
> I don't think training methods actually have much to do with it, I know "old school" trainers who use terminology when trying to discuss things on the net, via phone, email, etc just like the trainers that use "modern" methods.


Maybe no one has noticed that most of the dicussions, so you can talk training, go to crap because no one agrees on the terms. How many of these discussions start off with a suggestion to all define the way they see each and every term. They do muddy the water to the point you can't have a discussion....an intelligent one anyway. More time is spent debating all the elusive trainers terminology than discussing dogs. Of course, in a perfect world where terminalogy meant one thing, it would be of great benefit. Just doesn't happen to be that way.


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## Gillian Schuler (Apr 12, 2008)

Even out of the field, using today's terminology verbally, there are a number of handlers who don't understand what is meant.

Terminology isn't just limited to the written word.

A dog with a weak nervous costume? A dog without the heart / fight to go out and attack the helper? Most people don't need to see the dog to understand what is meant.

At a seminar I once attended - all I understood at one point (I had retired my dog after 10 years of IPO) was "Bahnhof" until a down to earth chap from the police force told me it was all I had been doing up to now but packed up in pretty terminolgy to justify the cost of the seminar.

If you can't convince them, confuse them!!


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## Jim Delbridge (Jan 27, 2010)

David Frost said:


> The fortunate this is, as trainers we recognize such a situation can happen. If we are fortunate, ie my opportunity with very large quantities of explosives, we avail ourselves of these opportunities.
> We train. Then, when push comes to shove, the part of the team with the opposable thumbs, step in and make the decision. ha ha.
> 
> DFrost


Makes sense. I've been asked multiple times what my dog does on a "Whole Body", as in indication, etc.

To be honest, if the dog and I are together, the dog got me to the body and when we arrive the dog gets a good boy, put on lead on a nearby tree, and I go to work as a death investigator. There's no point (in my mind) of going through the ritual of training as I can testify that the remains were not disturbed by my dog (anyway). We did a floater once where we transported the body in a sling along the boat (to protect it from further damage). The dog could not see the body, but could smell it. I just handed him his ball as he was right giving his indication. He proceeded to refind and self-reward on the body at least 20 more times between the find and the boat ramp. I couldn't buy better reinforcement training.

As to terminology, the discussion came up due to the Casey Anthony trial and the handler giving the current politically correct term of "final trained alert" while discussing the dog "alerted" (exhibited scent behavior) on scent. The instructor's company line was to try to not confuse the jury. I tend to prefer "exhibited scent behavior" and "gave its indication".

The only scent thresholds I know that are documented tend to come from narcotics and accellerants. I know the FBI presented finds with narc dogs on 0.5 ppb of cocaine. Since we still really don't know what dogs identify as uniquely human remains in its multitude of states, I've yet to see any findings in this area. If you know of any, please let me know where I can look for it.

thanks for the discussion,

Jim


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