Description / This is a comprehensive educational opportunity on developing an understanding of the search game in a wide area search environment. This class is suitable for all levels of K9s doing detection work in Search and Rescue, Law Enforcement, and other related venues (live find, HRD, narcotics, explosives, accelerants, etc.) that work off leash no matter the environment to locate larger target odor. This class focuses on giving the trainer tools deliberately set learning opportunities for their K9 partner to advance their overall performance. Time will be split between lectures, group work and field work.

Ideal for those who desire to add nose time, breadth and difficulty to their training program but have not worked in this setting or are in the beginning stages of training a K9 to search larger areas (5 acres <).

Focus is on training the trainer, meeting the team at its level and providing a challenging and safe learning environment.

Participant recommended skill set: This course is designed to advance the teams with any skill level who have not worked in the wilderness setting. It is also suitable for those who are have moderate to advanced skill level but are working through challenges. The K9 has a reliable recall and trained final response.

Topics Covered:

• Techniques for the deliberate teaching of distance and commitment to odor/scent

• Techniques for increasing K9 confidence to solve odor/scent problems

• Scent theory in the wilderness environment, search strategy development and adaption

• Discussion of learning processes

• Development of a plan to reinforce desired behavior chains (and how to break undesired behavior chains)

• Discrimination and Stimulus control – ignoring distractions

• Proper generalization and troubleshooting of the Trained Final Response (TFR)

This class does meet the crime scene preservation pre-req for the National Association of Search and Rescue.

Instructors / Robin Greubel, Janey Fuller

Type Of Class / Facilitated training and learning

Cost / $300 per working team/$150 Audit

Limit of 12 working teams

Includes tshirts and lunch in the field