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Sunday, February 24, 2013

Quick Dog Training Tricks

 "Quick Family Disaster Dog Training" will be posted weekly along with two regular monthly lessons to show you how your family dog can come to your aid during an emergency or major disaster.




Quick Dog Training Tricks 

Teach your dog to pick up or retrieve objects by name or command 


1.  Teach your dog to play with a toy

2. Use a command or word like "Fetch, Go-Get, Retrieve "

3. When dog is retrieving the toy on command attach toy to an object you wish the dog to get for you or place the toy with the item.

4. Use the command or word like "fetch" with the objects name

5. Ask dog to find toy/object by the name or command you used

6. Once dog is bringing you the toy and object remove toy

7. Ask dog to find object by name

8. When dog finds or brings you object then praise dog with toy and play

Once dog is retrieving object you ask for you by name then you can add other object by names


Wrinkledpups Daisy Mayham Fetching


Important Dog News~~~~~~~

Pet Food Recalls and other great pet care advice 
can be found at Wendy's Animal Talk



Saturday, February 9, 2013

Family Dogs and Working Dogs Scent Discrimination

Family Dog and Working Dog Scent Discrimination


This article explains how your family dog can tell the difference between you and another person or object. This information applies to Family Disaster Dogs, Tracking Dogs and Trailing Dogs as well as any dog who is using its nose to find an object, person or pet.

Scent discrimination can be a complicated and complex subject.

When I was first learning Bloodhound handling and training with my dog Sue, our SAR dog mentor and instructor, Lt. Ezra Roberts explained the basics of scent discrimination to me in what I continue to believe is the easiest way possible.
Amber and Incredible Sue


I smile in remembrance of Ezra as I write this..I couldn't of asked for a better mentor.

He said, " When a Bloodhound smells a chocolate cake they smell every ingredient of the cake. The flour, sugar, eggs and coco while other dogs smell only the chocolate cake. "

This is the difference between a dog trained to scent discriminate. They smell one scent out of many many scents.

Dogs that are not trained to scent discriminate will search for only one scent, such as, live human scent but not each individual person within that human scent. They will find any human scent and all human scent in a certain search area by air scenting, tracking and  grid working. They will find every person or object's scent they are trained to find, such as bombs, drugs, humans live and remains. They are trained using only one scent article or smell.

Other dogs are trained to find many different scents or a scent they are given by the handler. These dogs are scent discriminating when they find a drug or object the handler asked them to find.

Service dogs who are trained to get the newspaper, slippers and dropped items of their owners are scent and sight discriminating. They know your slippers from another person's slippers.

Bloodhounds are different in that they process the ability to scent discriminate naturally. When a Bloodhound is given a scent article they start looking for that scent without much training at all. The handler gets most of the training and not the dog.

We don't train Bloodhounds they train us. Family dogs of all ages act naturally like the Bloodhounds when they stay close to their owners, bring your their toy or follow a special family member.

These dogs are choosing to discriminate. All dogs can discriminate and they do naturally.
It is up to us humans to take advantage of this natural ability in the dog and teach our dogs what we wish them to find or who.

When we train our family dogs to find objects by name we are teaching them to discriminate.

You can learn how to train your family dog to discriminate by going to our lesson page here. or click the page button at the top of this page.

Coming Soon "My Puppy Can Find Me" picture book that teaches your child and dog to work together so they are never lost and can find you ! 

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Wednesday, February 6, 2013

More Free Lessons Coming Soon

More Free Lessons Coming Soon


 

Feb 2013 Tracking and Scent Discrimination

The differences of scent discrimination in tracking dogs.

How your family dog can use their nose for different scenting jobs.


March 2013 Missing Persons

Using and teaching your dog to find your child.

How to teach an old dog to track or trail a person or lost pet.

April 2013 Survival

How to teach your dog to gather your family in one place.

How to train your to come to your rescue.

Be sure and check out the lesson links below !

Learn more about Family Disaster Dogs in the post below,,, 

Happy trails



Author Amber Higgins

Author Amber Higgins
Click Pic to Visit my author page

Welcome UK and Worldwide Visitors

Welcome UK and worldwide visitors and friends to Family Disaster Dogs online! Although I'm an American author and dog professional the worldwide web has given me the opportunity to connect with some wonderful folks who have contributed pictures for my books. The "Start Mantrailing" book features RRI K9 North Scotland trained Search and Rescue Dog "Amber" on the cover and her teammates training in the book, plus American dogs using my training methods. A portion of sales of the Start Mantrailing book or copies were donated to RRI North Scotland. The children's picture book "My Puppy Can Find Me" has my daughter and bloodhound as illustrations by UK cartoonist Scotty King. You can find the books on Amazon UK or use the contact page to order from me. When you click the links will take you to your own county pages of this site.

Start Mantrailing Free Preview on Audible, Kindle and Paperback

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My Dog is Prepared Are You ?

How are you Prepared?  Post answers in the comments...we'd love to hear from you! Be ready for pet medical emergencies with one of these...

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My Children's Picture Book

My Children's Picture Book
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Past Posts and Lessons

To see all the lessons and dog care articles on this site:

Look at the dates listed below and click one date to bring up all the articles and lessons published at this site in one page for each date.

There are well over 200 pages that have been published here at Family Disaster Dogs since 2011.

New lessons or dog care articles continue to be posted weekly.

The list below is the easiest way to find all the information here.

Enjoy the search and follow that dog!

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