Training a Messenger Dog- Teach any Dog

Training a Messenger Dog

Go Between 2 people

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 "My Puppy Can Find Me" children picture book by Amber Higgins with art by UK Cartoonist Helen "Scotty" King 

Training a Messenger Dog- Teach any Dog to Go to People for Help

Your family disaster dog can be a huge asset in the event that you are ever trapped or separated from your loved ones. For instance, after a tornado or earthquake when rubble is everywhere and you may be unable to reach a family member or them you because of debris in the way. Your dog can go under or over the wreckage to deliver supplies or messages between you and your family. 

Military and war dogs are trained as messenger dogs and many have honored as a hero after running through explosives, gunfire, and razor wire in order to deliver a message between soldiers. Your family dog can be your hero too by simply following the lessons here at Family Disaster Dogs.

You can send your dog to locate a loved one and carry a first aid kit, food or water. Be sure to include a pen and paper in your dog’s go-bag backpack so the other person can write you a message and you can send messages back and fourth.

Also, include a dog tag on your dog’s collar and a luggage tag on the backpack that says,  ” send dog- say  ”Return” or  the command you will teach your dog in this lesson. Be sure all of your friends and family members know the command to send your dog to you and other people. Write instructions on a note that is in a clear plastic cover and attached to your dogs backpack so people will be able to use your dog to find you if you are ever unconscious and trapped.

You will teach this lesson after your dog has learned to retrieve or fetch in the previous lessons and as you practice the fetch lessons you will incorporate this lesson into your sessions teaching your dog to carry objects on command by asking your dog to keep a hold of the object they retrieved as you walk with your dog tell your dog to “carry”.

This lesson will use 2 people and basically what you do is send your dog back and fourth between yourself and another person by using “Come” (click for lesson) and “Return” or “Go-To” then later after your dog is doing this exercise you will ask your dog to carry an object to the other person and they ask the dog to return to you with a the item or a new item.

Start out with the other person close by, within sight of you and about 30 paces or steps away from you.

Ask them to call your dog and immediately you will command your dog to “Go to name”. If the person is somebody your dog knows, be sure to use the person’s name so your dog will learn to go to them by name.

If the person is not somebody you will be finding in a real event then you do not have to use the name because your dog will learn to find any human being if you send them out to “Go” to a person. They will look for a person until they find one.

You can even teach your dog at this point to go to people dressed or smelling a certain way, such as a person dressed in an army uniform instead of civilian clothes. The dog will learn to only go to those in that uniform and not another uniform if no other uniform or smell is used during training.

Drug dogs can be taught to go to a person smelling like the drug, explosive dogs can learn to indicate a person who smells like they have been in the same room as the explosive materials used in bombs.  A dog can be taught to go to find food, water or shelter if these items are gradually added into this lesson one at a time by command.

After you send your dog to the other person and when your dog reaches the other person, the person will praise your dog then send the dog back to you using the “Return” or another command you want. At the same time you will call your dog to “Come” and praise when your dog comes back to you.

Repeat this 4 or 5 times, make it fun and keep it fun. If your dog becomes bored with this game and stops to look at you like “hey, why don’t you two people walk to each other instead of me running” then it is up to you to make this game more interesting.

Change Locations often when Training the Dog

Change locations by having the other person move off to the side from where they were the first time so your dog has to look for them to make the game more challenging. Add toys and move about the yard to change the course, you can throw a ball between each other and release the dog using the commands to add variety to the game.

In no time your dog will be going between you and another person on command. Then you can add a third person as yourself; while you stand on the sideline and have your dog go between 2 other people as you use the commands to work your dog.

If you use the people’s names then your dog will learn to go between those people in a crowd. Eventually, you can teach your dog the name of everybody in the house, club or group and have your dog carry items back and fourth. Just like service dogs that retrieve items for disabled people your dog can get you items too if you teach your dog the name.

Don’t forget to put the Dog Go-Bag  on your dog and practice using it to carry items between people. Some dogs are better at carrying items a long distance in their mouths then others and the backpack can carry much more then one dog’s mouth.

Your dog will be very proud to carry items for you and you will be able to see the joy in how they work this lesson. Once they have reached the stage of working this lesson well, you can add this skill to the tracking and trailing lessons.

To do so follow these steps, after your dog finds a person by tracking or trailing, the dog returns to handler then you give the dog the first aid kit and send the dog back to the person. The person takes the first aid kit, praises your dog and commands your dog to go-to you and your dog comes back for you to follow them to the person.

Daisy Fetch

Now that your dog knows people by name and how to go-to, you can do the same lesson in reverse, where you hide and ask a person to tell your dog to find you in case you are ever missing. Your wife or family member can ask the dog to, “ Go-to you by name”, your dog will  find you.

If you are unconscious and unable to speak to your dog, because of this training the dog will try to “alert” you, if that does not work then your dog will return to who sent him to bring them to you. All of the training in all of these lessons fit together to teach your dog a whole mission of tasks that are possible to do in the event of an emergency.

Always have a person use your name when sending your dog back to you or a code name, such as handler, so that one word means YOU. Then your dog will find you only. This is very important lesson for your dog to learn in case you are ever missing.

These lessons teach the dog how to think like a person in order to communicate with us and help us. We are not only teaching the dog to do as we say but to think for us to find our family members or to save our life.

In the next lesson we will go over how to teach your dog to find you in more detail.

All the previous lessons can be found at this lesson page. and on the page tab on the left side of this page.

Stay Safe out there!

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Obedience Tricks

Obedience Tricks and Tips

These lessons will be posted on an obedience page for easy access as well as in this posting...

Before we get started on teaching your dog more search and rescue skills lets go over some obedience tricks and tips that can help you control a hard to handle dog or teach a new puppy manners on a leash.

These tips and tricks can teach any dog how to behave on a leash in a few sessions.

These Obedience tricks and tips are for you to use to teach your family dog to be a well mannered member of your pack without having to attend an obedience training course.

These basic obedience commands and lessons are intended to help teach you how to control and handle your dog in order for you to train your pet to assist you during an emergency. 

If you have any problem handling your dog or getting your dog to pay attention when you are training search tactics then use these obedience lessons to teach your dog to pay attention to you and to follow your directions.

I’m a firm believer in following the Bloodhound and any other breed who is trailing naturally. For this reason, I do not believe in obedience training trailing dogs but I do believe that tracking and air scenting dogs should undergo obedience training. 

The reason is that we follow a trailing dog’s direction but a tracking dog follows our direction or commands. (By now you should know the difference between a trailing dog and tracking dog, if not, go back to lesson 1)

Obedience training discourages a dog to run ahead and perform on natural instincts that I want them to use to find a person.

Obedience training teaches our dogs to pay attention to us, to look at us for what to do next and I do not want my Bloodhound to depend on me to tell them where to go. 

I want my Bloodhound running ahead showing me where to go.

On the other hand, I do want to tell my area search or air scenting dog, my German Shepherd, what area to look in or which room to stay out of or to go into.

I teach these dogs how to climb in and out of windows, up and down ladders and into tunnels so they can get into rubble and debris to search for a person. 

These air scenting dogs need directions to perform the feats they are asked to do. 

They undergo obedience training before and during search training. 

They constantly learn as I do with each dog how to use their skills to achieve the swiftest most effective results.

Remember

Dogs learn faster if the lessons are short and to the point. 

Training your dog twice a day for 15 minutes will bring better results then once a day for a longer time frame.

Dogs have short attention spans; many dogs get bored quickly if the task is not exciting. Dogs do not learn when they are bored.

Read the lesson about collars before you do these lessons. 

These lessons are done using either a flat collar or a regular choke chain collar and 6 ft leash unless otherwise stated. Off leash dogs can learn from these lessons too with praise and encouragement.

These dog training tricks and tips are not the ordinary class room techniques you find in dog training books or classes. These tips and tricks are proven methods for handling a dog.

In order to train a dog, the exercises have to be repeated and rewarded time and time again. 

No dog learns immediately, although I can get immediate results using these handling techniques, the dog has not learned the positioning I want. They have only been placed in the position I want through the use of the leash and my body movement. 

Continued in the next post will be how to teach a dog to heel or walk nice on a leash without pulling.  This dog handling trick is not known by many trainers and will stop a dog from pulling you on a leash.

Lesson 18: The Leash

Leash Knowledge 

Before you put a leash on a dog it's a good idea to learn about how to use the leash and what the equipment is meant to be used for. 

The leash is not simply a rope that tethers your dog to you or a means of control. The leash is a communication tool that makes asking your dog to do things for you a possibility and with the proper and intended use of a leash you will be communicating with your dog instead of being controlled by the leash and the dog's movement or intention.

Therefore, the leash can become either a tool for you to use to communicate to your dog or for your dog to use to control you, such as when your dog drags you down the sidewalk. Who is in charge ? Who is controlling who? In the sidewalk case, the dog is using the leash to control you!

Leashes come in many sizes and types for several different uses, just like a collar has many intended purposes so does a leash. You can learn about collars in lesson 17.

The leash is called a lead in some circles and often attaches to a collar. Some leashes have a collar included, such as many show dog leads or slip leads. 

Deciding on which type of leash or lead you use depends upon what you and your dog will be doing along with how comfortable you wish you and your dog to be. Chain leashes can be quite painful if the slip through your hand when your dog pulls or takes off while a flat leather leash can still burn your hand if the dog pulls away to fast a nylon lead will make a much harsher burn then leather will.

A leather leash will stretch while a nylon leash will not give. I prefer leather because I can get a better grip and the burn is less if the dog takes off. I use a long nylon leash for tracking and trailing because it is difficult to find a leash longer then 6 foot in leather. A leather leash does not tangle as easily as a nylon leash either.

Any leash can become tangled around your or your dog's legs tripping both of you if you are not careful. Never pull constantly on a leash or your dog will pull hard against the pressure created making a game of tug a war with you.

If your dog pulls on the leash to hard, all you have to do is give the dog some more leash or slack and turn around to go the other direction. You keep walking and let your dog go until the dog hits the end of the leash and the leash will work for you bringing the dog around and back to your side. This does take practice. 

Never keep constant pressure on the leash, if you need to correct your dog, give the leash some slack and then pull the slack out of the leash to tighten and release the collar which will give your dog a correction or a cue to stop what it is doing. 

Be aware that when using a leash on a chain collar which has to much chain when the collar is tighten allows the snap of the leash to hit your dog in the face or eye possibly injuring your dog.

Lesson 15;Indicating

Indicating a Found Person

How your dog tells you they found Someone

Indicating a “Find” means that the search dog tells the handler that the dog has found what they were asked to look for.

Image this, a building has collapsed and your dog is searching for people who might be inside. Your dog smells a person who is unconscious (quite and no movement for you to notice) under the rubble so how does your dog tell you this when you can not see what is under the rubble? Also the dog smells everything so how do you tell when they find one smell in all this rubble?

First this is why the dogs are taught the human scent in training or they would find every hot dog or favorite toy in the rubble.

Now that you have taught your dog how to find the human scent using lessons here we have to teach your dog to show you when they find that scent in a number of different situations. We have to show your dog how to communicate or indicate to us when they make that “find” we asked for.

A detection dog handler must keep in mind that other odors and obstacles can come in the way of the scent they are seeking so they must expose the dog to different scenarios in training in order for the dog to learn how to work these obstacles or puzzles. 

You make puzzles by using different locations to train at which creates different situations that the dog encounters but at each location you will notice your dog indicating to you in the same way.

Look for this Indication in training.

Dogs naturally indicate or communicate a number of different ways and by watching your dog in training when they make a find you will see how they behave. Some dogs wag the tail wholehearted and get all excited about finding the person while others sit or lay down with the person for a hug. Many dogs will come back to get their owner or handler because they want the owner to hurry up and catch up, to see what they did. 

we are so excited to see you!

Some dogs bark and search dogs are often taught how to bark for an indication that the job is done and so the handler can find them. In wilderness situations a bark can come in handy for locating your dog and the person they find but this bark indicator can also scare the person who is found.

Some people are easily frightened by a dog that comes running up out of nowhere barking at them. In an emergency situation this person could become over traumatized by the dog looking threatening. 

For this reason, a bark indication should only be used in some situations like the collapsed building incident mentioned or when a person is unconscious but even then they can wake up in a mental state that affects how they react to the barking dog.

A Bloodhound I once knew, owned and re-certified, "Homer",looked for an Alzheimer patient once who kept running away from him and the search parties. This patient would run from them, and hide in different areas of the woods because she thought she was in WW2 again. She kept them hopping for about 6 hours until they finally found her safe and sound. She honestly thought she was back in the war and the police were soldiers with Bloodhounds hunting her down not trying to rescue her. This taught us all a very important lesson.

This lesson is taught while you work with your dog on trailing, tracking or air scenting by incorporating this lesson into the end of the scenting lesson you are working. If you are training a multi purpose scenting dog who smells for different things like live person or somebody who has been in the water for awhile  then you can use different means of indicating for each purpose. (more about water searching coming later)

By watching your dog’s reaction when they make a find in training you can find out which behavior will work for your dog to indicate to you and then encourage that behavior more by praising and attaching a name to the behavior.

For instance, let’s say your dog is one who runs back to you when they find a person in training. You can take advantage of this action by praising your dog’s return to you with “Good dog, you found Johnny” then ask the dog to “Show You” and run with the dog to the person. Not only are you encouraging your dog to come get you but also to find that person named Johnny.

If you ask your dog to “Show You” each time they come back and they will always come back for you then they learn to associate the word with the action of getting you and returning to the person. 

With regular use of a name the dog learns to associate that name with that person. Consequently not only are you teaching your dog how to indicate a find but also a person’s name and how to return to you which can be added onto later with other skills.

I like to use “Sit” as my indicator because a sit means the job is finished and this is a quite way or well mannered way for the dog to show a frightened person that everything is ok.  If the person is under rubble the dog will sit at the spot of the scent, if the person is behind a bush or log the dog will sit at the place. I am usually very close behind my dogs whether on leash or off so I will see them sit or come onto them sitting soon enough. Otherwise, my dogs return to get me.

Sue indicating the Find

 Some search dogs are taught to leave an item or bandanna with the found person and return to the handler which shows the handler the person is found.

Other search dogs carry supplies the person can access with a radio which I think is a good idea. A prepaid cell phone in your dog’s pack would come in handy for giving you a call when they were found...modern techno doggie to the rescue. 


Other search dogs wear radio collars or GPS tracking devices so the handler can locate them.

Scratching is another common indicator that police and search dogs use to show their handler the find is inside someplace or there it is. This can be taught by having the person hide under cardboard or bedsheets with food treats which encourage the dog to dig them and the treats up.

As soon as the dog starts to dig at the sheet or cardboard then praise the dog for digging or scratching. Have the person give them a treat. Do again. After a few lessons, do not give the dog a treat except every now and then so the dog learns to indicate the person and not the treat. Eventually do not use a treat at all except after the session or when not in training.

A bark is taught by teaching your dog to speak when they make a find. You can learn how to teach your dog to speak here at this Speak lesson link... 

As you can see this lesson is not as uniformed as other lessons in dog training because this lesson is about communicating with your dog in that they have to show you something.

Every dog is different and some dogs will not bark no matter what while others tend to bark too much. Just like people our dogs are individuals who will communicate in their own ways and it is up to us humans to learn what the dog is saying.

This is why the easiest way to teach a dog to show you or indicate is for you to watch the dog and learn how they naturally react then use this reaction to your advantage by encouraging the action more with praise.

How to Encourage a Dog

Learn to love and watch a dog accomplish what they set out to do. Capture the moment that resides in all of us. The moment of accomplishment of though, focus, action and movement in perfect harmony.

This is what brings into creation the art of being able to put in motion

a thought in real life with the joy of the moment.

Dog love to please us, they have proven time and time again throughout history that they will do for us anything we ask or need with tail wagging joy and total commitment.

They learn early on to come to us and ask us to take them for a walk, to feed them and to love them. They know how to get our attention and we've all heard about how well our dogs train us.

A well trained dog is actually a partnership built on trust and love with its handler.
Dogs that are trained to fear being wrong are not working with their handler as a teammate, as a partner. They are reacting from fear of punishment and have learned that the handler will scare them if they do that behavior again.

They have not learned to think of the performance but of the punishment. Even the slightest punishment puts the dog's attention on what you are doing "to" him and not what he is doing at the moment.

We want your dogs to be thinking of what they can do for you instead of what you might do to them.

Training dogs with food rewards can bring on a similar response where the dog is only working for the food and not with you as a team member. Food therefore, is only recommended as a way to motivate the dog to begin to pay attention and then the food should be replaced with praise that leads to teamwork.

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