# Building Search



## Derek Copeland (Jan 5, 2011)

Looking for some suggestions,

I have a new dog that has recently been trained, his weak spot is building searches for human odor. Dog is somewhat handler dependent and doesn't like to go low on door seams, I have just recently started some work with him inside of buildings with agitation, run and hide, and reward with a bit in a quick manner, have also started to incorporate teaching the dog that he can control the decoy with vocalization to help with responses on doors.

Any other suggestions are welcome and appreciated


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## Faisal Khan (Apr 16, 2009)

I would sprinkle Copper dust on the seams.


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## Carol Boche (May 13, 2007)

Maybe not enough training on buildings was done initially so he just doesn't really know? 

What does he act like in the building? I know you said handler dependent, but that can mean different things. Is he relaxed and just looking to you for help? Or does he seem nervous and not sure of himself?


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## Derek Copeland (Jan 5, 2011)

No not nervous, he looks for re assurance from the handler doesn't like to range out, when he goes to a certain point he will turn around and look for the handle


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## Jeff Oehlsen (Apr 7, 2006)

So there is a chance that he has done a lot of his work by reading his handler, and is not able to do so in the building. Maybe you go back to the beginning and start over.


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## Chris McDonald (May 29, 2008)

This go back to the beginning seems to be the standard answerer I would expect many to give. At least I don’t think you can really go wrong with it. Unless you don’t know what the beginning is. In that case you should be asking how to start building searches. Im sure there are many threads on that on here already


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## Dave Colborn (Mar 25, 2009)

Derek.

Is his bitework strong? If he is at least decent, do bitework in the building. Normal stuff that he would see outside on the grass. Turn that into doing long bites in the building. Further and further away from the handler. Do this on line, as some of his bitework was probably on the back tie. Work the bite and not much control. Lift him off no outs. Sends through doorways and into low lit areas.

Don't do building searches for a few days until he is just comfortable biting away from the handler.

Let him win repeatedly.


Work on barking at doors and opening for a bite. let him see the decoy, close the door get one bark and let him go. Work on the alert separate from the searching. Get two barks, three, and so on. Do this repeatedly in one session. 

Good luck


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## Pete Stevens (Dec 16, 2010)

Go back and rebuild. Start off with a directed sniff at the door, one bark , door opens, he gets to bite. Wash, raise, repeat.....and more barks and get farther away from him. Might work, might not but such is dog training. For ranging out, again its rebuild. Let him kick the decoys ass close to you. Good decoy help is a major part of this so I hope your decoy is good. Let the dog take the decoy down when he is on the bite. Add more distance and time on the bite. Also, a short search close to you with a visual of a the decoy in the distance, short chase and bite might build up his confidence in ranging out. But be ready for the realization that he may not be cut out for that work.


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## Derek Copeland (Jan 5, 2011)

Dave, his bite is awesome, good full mouth bite and strong, very good overall just seems confused inside a building, what you said is similar to what I started doing, today was the first day of working on it, I just wanted to see if anyone had any other suggestions, I will stick with it for a few weeks and she how he does

Thanks for the input


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## Jim Nash (Mar 30, 2006)

All good advice so far . I'll just add that once off lead again the handler should pay attention to how they are working the dog . 

Are they calling the dog back to check on something alot ? Say those low door seems . Dogs get into a rythm and when I work them inititially say if they missed a door seam or room off a long hallway I wait til they turn back towards me on their own , then direct them to what I want checked . 

If the handler is excessively calling the dog back , especially a new dog back as it's ranging out away from him/her the dog starts getting it in his head that as he moves away he's going to be called back so he starts short ranging and turning back after a short distance anticipating the command to come back . 

Once the dog gets more solid I then can start calling him back as he moves away from me if it had missed an area I want checked but I still tend to wait till it starts turning towards me while still searching . For me it has to be urgent for me to call the dog back while still ranging out and away searching or a strong stubborn and/or experianced dog that is getting sloppy on his search pattern and can take the added OB . 

Good luck .


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## Barry Connell (Jul 25, 2010)

You kinda covered this but are we correct that there isn't confidence or drive issues, just a matter of not ranging out further ("hunting deep")

Are we also correct in assuming that the indication is good when he does find the bad guy?


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## Howard Knauf (May 10, 2008)

Jim has a good point regarding constantly calling the dog back. If that's being done then stop it for awhile.

One of my dogs was like this in the beginning. He was young and green so all it took was making baby steps to get him do do the work. 

You can start from the beginning (the door), or at the distance where he starts falling apart. Runoffs and hides followed by a quick search will get the dog driven enough to go deep. If he's a sound dog that's all it should take. It's going to take some repetition though, especially for the door seam work.


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## Dave Colborn (Mar 25, 2009)

Derek Copeland said:


> Dave, his bite is awesome, good full mouth bite and strong, very good overall just seems confused inside a building, what you said is similar to what I started doing, today was the first day of working on it, I just wanted to see if anyone had any other suggestions, I will stick with it for a few weeks and she how he does
> 
> Just to make sure i wrote it right, i wouldnt do searching at all yet. Just work on the dog being away from the handler, biting. No searching. Just do bites and get them further and furtber away from you.
> 
> ...


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## Howard Gaines III (Dec 26, 2007)

Derek reteaching from hall to door opening to just inside the room to deep inside seems to be the way to go...with limited vocals or coaching on your part. If the decoy is inside the room with a cracked door, blowing at the base, does the dogs alert?


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## Derek Copeland (Jan 5, 2011)

Howard, yes he alerts, the first time we ran him he gave a sit response, he is aggressive response on patrol work though, it only took us a couple times to get him to bark or scratch, he just seemed a little confused on what he was doing


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## Derek Copeland (Jan 5, 2011)

From everyones post it looks like we are all on the same page, thanks for all the ideas


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