# Hare Method



## Mary Lehman (Oct 2, 2008)

Konnie, I had hoped to attend your and Elizabeth's seminar in July, but I had been on a dead run since April so it was kind of out of the question.

I know several people that have trained with Randy Hare and I'm very interested in how you and Elizabeth have developed his method for disaster.

Mary Lehman
www.WhosWalkingWhom.com
Great Basin K9 SAR
NMTF1 CSS


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## Konnie Hein (Jun 14, 2006)

Hi Mary!
I would love to share the details with you! It would really take me hours to go in depth to describe our method (there are a lot of subtle, yet important details), but I'll try to sum it up. Instead of Randy's boxes, we use multiple bark barrels. We've tried to incorporate all of the nuances of Randy's method, and the basic idea is that we manipulate the environment so the dog _*teaches himself*_ what behavior brings reward. Manipulation of the environment includes creating a situation where the dog has to make his own choices, but the choices (aka distractions) are pre-determined based on the dog's level of training at the time. We also manipulate the environment so the dog is rewarded for the correct behavior while he's in the top 20% of his drive. The result of the method is an independent, highly driven search dog who ignores distractions and is obedient to the target odor (live human scent).

The method differs from the traditional training method in that we introduce scentwork right from the beginning, rather than teaching the dog to bark at a single barrel and hoping they get the idea to use their noses when we place the barrel on the pile. We also minimize the cues in the scent work training. The key to our method is that the dog teaches itself and the learning is not based on prompting of desired behaviors.

I do wish you could have attended our seminar. I know Elizabeth's schedule is pretty hectic until this winter and we haven't decided when we're going to do another one. I will keep you posted! Let me know if you have any other questions. I'll be glad to answer them!


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## Mary Lehman (Oct 2, 2008)

Hi Konnie. Thanks for sharing. That gives me a pretty good idea of modifying the use of the boxes to bark barrels. 

Please keep me posted if you decide to do another seminar as I'd love to attend. Mark Dawson was one of my evaluators at the June CA CE and highly recommended the seminar. I had looked at the announcement earlier on and it piqued my interest then.

The only issue I have with the Hare method is that it is very equipment intensive, i.e. several boxes. Or, in your case, several barrels which doesn't make it very portable.


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## Konnie Hein (Jun 14, 2006)

No, the barrels as a group are not very portable, but neither is a rubble pile, right?! :lol: 

We made our barrels from 55-gal blue drums (2 each per barrel). They're a little bit easier to manage than the corrugated black pipe we used for our single barrel! Since the blue barrels are basically free, we can have multiples of them at various training sites if we want to.

Here's a page showing the construction of our barrels:
http://picasaweb.google.com/joegore1/BarkBarrelFabrication#


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## Carol Boche (May 13, 2007)

Not to go off topic, because I am really interested as well....Randy will be here Labor Day weekend 2009 for three days. I am really looking forward to it. 

Konnie, there is always a place to stay if you want to come up....hint hint


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## Konnie Hein (Jun 14, 2006)

Carol - glad to hear you got in touch with Randy! Thanks for the invite, but I think the 27 hour drive will likely prohibit my attendance! On the other hand, it _would_ make for a cool trip...


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