Stimulating Interest in the Sock Toy

Many years have passed since the earthquake disaster in southern Italy in 1980. In the meantime we have had a lot of experience in actual search missions and have refined our training method considerably. The results we have achieved with different training groups and courses in our own country and elsewhere, and our success with our own dogs, suggest that our method of training appeals to almost all dogs.

Things That Move Are Prey

A search and rescue dog can be encouraged to have a real passion for searching with all sorts of prey and search performances. However, to make it clear to the dog that it has to search for its hidden sock toy, we have to work with the dog in the right manner. An article lying without movement will not be a hunting object for the dog; however, a moving object is immediately a living event for the dog. For the dog, with its origins as a hunter, everything that moves quickly will be recognized as prey and activate the hunting drive. When the sock toy disappears in high grass and there is no track to this prey, then the dog’s search drive will be activated. The search drive is an instinct the dog inherited from its forebears—a dog doesn’t have to learn to search.

Search and Prey Playing

The dog will learn, through this search and prey playing, to use its sense of smell intensively. It can also work in the techniques of using of air turbulence and odor traces, which are important for future work as a search and rescue dog. At the same time, the handler has a great opportunity, while the dog works at searching and locating, to learn to understand the dog’s body language and alert behavior. This way of playing can be understood as a prey performance, with the sock toy as prey.

If the dog is now highly interested in the sock toy, we can combine it with different searches, for example, in the house. The toy will at first be hidden in a corner of the room under a little carpet. The dog sees the direction but doesn’t know exactly where the sock toy is hidden. Then it will be activated to search. It can locate the toy quite quickly, and the handler, of course, should be very enthusiastic about the find. Play with the dog and the sock toy without any rush to move on, and at last the prey sharing takes place.

These searches should become more difficult, and at some point the dog should no longer know where the toy is hidden because it has to wait in another room while the toy is placed. These searches can, of course, also be done in a garden, woods, or park. Always follow up locating the sock toy with comprehensive playing and prey sharing. In this way the dog will become quite adept at searching.

Figure 5.1 The dog finds the sock toy in the high grass, plays with it, and then brings it to the handler.

Developing the Search Passion

By making use of its drives, we introduce the dog to the behavior we require. This behavior is not forced on the dog, and we didn’t direct it. Both points are important, because the dog learns to search of its own free will. At the same time, it discovers the finer points of search work by trial and error.

Ultimately, it is important that the replacement prey never be the goal of searching. This sock toy should never be hidden under the snow or under rubble without making a connection with human odor. It is only during the first step in training search playing that the dog can be allowed to search without human odor, since these searches are only intended to create a passion for searching in the dog.