Lesson 27: Alert to Danger-Part 1

Alert to Danger

Fire, Earthquake,Tornado

Dig up or Wake a Person

Part 1 of 2

Teaching your family disaster dog to alert or wake you up in dangerous situations and weather conditions can mean the difference between life and death. Survival might depend on your dog waking you up at the right moment or alerting you when they feel the floor shake.

This lesson will be in 2 parts in order to cover the various alerts that can be taught the same way.

Part 1; Understanding the Alert

Part 2; Set-Up with Pictures click to read

Understanding the Alert 

Daisy checks for a Person

Teaching your dog to alert you to possible dangers before and when a danger happens can be lifesaving. Bloodhound Daisy always wakes me if she thinks there is any danger. During storms or if she smells smoke she comes to me and paws me to wake me or get me moving. 

I encourage her behavior but not to the point of her becoming over protective and waking me at the slightest sound.

One thing with dogs we should always keep in mind is that they try very hard to please us and some dogs will go overboard in the attempts to do so if we encourage them to much. There is often a fine line between motivation and encouragement that can be crossed which results in a dog that has issues understanding what we ask. 

For instance, teaching a dog to bark for an alert can make some dogs bark all the time or anytime they want something. Another example is teaching a dog to dig at a certain time then one day he digs the whole yard up for no reason except it was fun and he remembers the day you said it was okay to dig. 

To avoid this problem, always associate what you ask the dog to do with a command, situation or action on your part. Then they learn to do their part and you work as a team. 

Any other time, when they are not under command or in the situation or action with you and they are not suppose to bark or dig, tell them to stop. Don't encourage them to bark or dig.

I like quite dogs and teach mine to sit or paw me for alerts. In this lesson we are going to use our dog's natural instinct about impending weather to save a pack member by alerting us to danger.

Many people have noted how their dog has behaved in unusual ways before an earthquake or serious storm. Dogs, like other animals, often react before a major event by taking cover or grouping up for safety.

Native Americans, farmers and outdoors adventurers know to watch animals for signs of weather changes. When the geese fly north we know a mild day is on the horizon but if they fly south we know to watch out for bad weather.

Our animals know long before we do and it stands to reason if we show our dog what to do when they feel the changes coming then we can be prepared ahead of time.

Teaching your dog to be a family disaster dog or survival dog is similar to learning CPR or becoming a Doomsday Prepper because you will not be able to actually perform these skills in a real situation unless an emergency occurred.

Similar to CPR-we want to have the use of these skills but hope to God we never have to use them.

Your dog can save your life or the life of a loved one.

To teach your dog to alert you to danger, such as smoke and weather conditions you will need to set up a pretend or mock training opportunity where you can practice what to do. 

Here we have a person pretending to be unconscious
 under Blankets and Small Furniture

As you practice, the training becomes like doing a fire drill where your family and dog learns what to do if they smell smoke or hear a tornado coming.

If you have an emergency warning system in your town or location that sounds off on the television or radio regularly that you can hear then you can use this to as a signal to your dog to alert you. 

If not, then we can rely on the dog’s natural ability to know when doom is pending by teaching our dog’s to show us when they get the urge danger is coming.

To use the National Warning System as a clue or command for your dog to wake you or alert you then you would do the training sessions at the time when the warning sounds on your radio or television. You will have to plan ahead to have the session set up and ready when the warning goes off.

If you have a burglar alarm or other alarm on your home or car, your dog can be taught to alert you to these sounds as well. You can make your own alarm with a horn or loud noise maker if you want the extra advantage of a noise alarm that helps to wake everyone.

If you’re in an area of the county that has earthquakes or tornadoes, use these opportunities to work your dog in a drill or session so when the big one comes your dog will alert you first.

Setting  a training session or drill to teach your dogto alert you can be as easy as having a person hide under a blanket or as complex as making a pretend pile of lightweight rubble from cardboard boxes, newspaper or whatever furniture you can think of that makes the scene look like a disaster happened.

This set-up gives your dog a reason to react because the scene or person does not look normal, thus the dog realizes something is wrong.

Setting up Sessions and Instructions are covered in detail 
in Part 2...next.  

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Come when Called-Sit

Teaching your dog to 

Come when Called and Sit

One of the most asked questions in dog training is;

how do I train my dog to come?

This is one of the most important actions your dog should learn.

Calling your dog to you may save your dog's life if they are running into traffic.


You will never be as fast as your dog on foot so forget about chasing a dog, other then to keep them in sight or out of harm's way by stopping the cars.

If there's no traffic or a harmful situation in the nearby area and your dog will not come to you, turn around with your back to your dog and walk away calling your dog to go "along" with you.

You are not telling the dog to come to you but to go along with you.

If you make this really interesting like "oh let's see this" and stop to pick at something on the ground, throw a leaf or two, toss some gravel in the air, or dance around a little. You can even run a few steps to make your dog wonder what you are doing and come to see.

Gotcha kido! 

Do NOT then lead your dog away like you are mad at them.

Make sure your dog knows how happy you are that they joined you in seeing what was going on and they'll be more excited to come see next time, lots of petting and good dog praise.

When you feed your dog always make sure to incorporate the word "come" with the dog’s name. If they sit near by, take them out of the room before and until you have the food ready then bring the dog back in by saying , "come”,  using their name, ” lets eat".

Another time to reinforce come is when the dog is running around the yard, practice calling them to you in a playful, encouraging way. Squat down at first so you are at the dog’s level and not as threatening.

Praise and pet, praise, praise.

Always make come the most enjoyable experience your dog has with you and they'll look forward to coming to you.

Never ever, ever call a dog to you and punish them.

Remember 

If a dog is doing something bad, like chewing a sock or getting into the trash, one of the best ways to stop them is to get their toy and say "hey, look what I have."

Play with their toy and see how long they stay with your sock.

Doggie will want the toy you have because you make what you are doing more fun the what they are doing.

Put your sock away, give them their toy instead and play a little with them to show them this makes you happy.

Keep in mind the floor is the dog's world.

You live above them other then your feet, most everything on the floor they may think of as their own until they learn what belongs to you.

Your dog might think you left that sock there just for him and wasn't that nice of you.

He'll wonder how come you came in and all of a sudden yelled at him.

Why did you take his sock away, some friend you are.

Always make come the best thing your dog can do for you and they will come every time when they are called.

To teach your dog to come while using a leash when you are walking by you suddenly stepping backwards quickly with your right leg first if your dog is on your left side.

Continue stepping backwards as you call your dog to come to you. At first your dog will be surprised because you were just walking next to them and now your gone, stepping backwards.

This is good because it helps your dog learn you might move so they should pay attention. As you step backwards and call your dog, you will gently use the leash and praise to call your dog to sit in front of you as you stop about 10 paces back.

When you stop, gently lead your dog to stop in front of you and ask them to sit.

This can be done any time you have space while walking your dog. Do this often and soon your dog will be coming to you when they are called on and off leash to sit in front of you.

Always praise, praise and praise.

Always say your dogs name before you use a command or ask them to do anything except stay or wait.

All other commands should begin with your dog's name so they know you are talking to them and not the other dog or person in the room.

A Trick for a Sit

We have all heard of using pressure points in the body to relieve pain. This dog training trick uses pressure points instead of force to teach a dog to sit.

With your dog standing beside you rub your hand down the top line of his back, all the way from his shoulders to his tail.

Do it again and feel where the dog's hips join the body.

Now rub your dog's back starting before the hips to the tail, feel where the two bones are that stick up from the hips?

These bones will be well before the tail and behind the stomach on the overweight guys and girls.

Look after you feel and you should be able to see the 2 bones at the top of the hips on most dogs.

Using your free hand with your thumb and middle finger...place your hand on the bone area with the thumb Behind one bone and the middle finger Behind the other bone.

Then press your fingers gently down and a little bit together then see what happens.

There are 2 pressure points right there behind those two hip bones on the dog's back.

This is actually safer on the kidneys of dogs then pressing or pushing the dog down to a sitting position.

Especially if you are working with an older dog.

With large strong dogs and the well padded dogs you may have to use more pressure for them to respond. On small breeds, do not push them down at all, just pinch gently but firm enough to feel.

Now, if you praise the dog right away for sitting when you pinch the pressure point, the dog will be sitting in no time.

If you do not praise the dog, and get them sitting without having to use the pressure point often they will learn to wiggle out from under you and get away from sitting.

Your fault not your dog’s; do not get mad at them.

Timing is everything in dog training.

Have fun, lots of praise, pet them once they are in the sit position and not unless they are.

Coming after the next Obedience posts; how to teach your family dog to alert you to fire and emergencies at home.

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. 

Playing in the water on a hot Ozark dayWrinkledpups Beauregard "Bo"
(1999-2003)

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.

Miss Lilly and Tammi
2005
We're so proud of these 2 !

Tammi, Lilly and Bert (pictured below) are a team we are extremely proud of. 

Lilly, along with Wrinkledpups Bloodhound Bert and Tammi made an incredible 1st Find after only a short time in training. Tammi got Lilly from us when Lilly was 6 yrs old and Bert when he was 6 months old. 

These were Tammi's first Bloodhounds and after training for only a few months with a local law enforcement trainer in their area, they were called on a search for a missing elderly couple.

The couple's car was found after the couple had been missing for quite a long time. Tammi called me to tell me after she scented the dogs on the car, both dogs led her through the woods to a old empty house. Lilly went to the sofa and got on the sofa then the floor and she did not want to move. Bert scratched at the floor and walls. The house was a mess, full of trash and furnishings everywhere. It looked like nobody had been in the house for years.

Tammy could not figure out what was wrong with the dogs. Lilly did not want to do anything but lay there. Bert ? Well he was young and maybe just wanted to play?

Always trust your dog...I told her to go back and do the same as she did before. Watch the dogs, they are trying to tell her something. She did exactly that and with the police, the elderly couple was found buried in the wall and floor of the house. They had been murdered and missing for months. 

Never underestimate your dog.

Bert and Tammi
Thank you Tammi, Bert and Lilly
for making us proud

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.