John Lyons and dog training

[mtnmollie]

I am training two tracking dogs for Search and Rescue. So you do your research, find out how professionals train, find a method that suits you best, and add John's training philosophy to it. :p I choose tracking through drive,
used by the RCMR in Alberta.

You can not force a dog to track or trail, so you must build drive or a "want- to" additude in the dog. I Know how to build a "Want- To" attitude in my horse, everytime you correct them, it effects your relationship, and "want- to" attitude; so direct do not correct your horse, as much as possible.
Be an Active, not a re- active trainer. I have worked hard at training in steps, and directing my dogs, and what a "want - to" attitude I have built.
Thank you, John.

So yesterday we are trailing Gene, and low and behold, this dog comes up within 25 feet of us, and my dog totally looses focus on trailing and just wants to bet the snot out of the stray dog on my place.

My trailing command is " go- find". You never give the canter cue until you know for sure the horse will do it so I asked my dog a question, " Where's Gene? " And he refocused and took off like shot out of a rocket with great enthusiam, want to attitude and drive. Really not possible with this dog.
To heck with that distraction, we found Gene. :p

John is always helping me go all the way to not possible with my training.
Thanks John. :D

My dog did so good! Yeah!

But it's all because of what I learned from John. :)

[April]

Thats really awesome.........John is a great teacher.

[mtnmollie]

My dog is tracking and low and behold , a bunch of cattle.

My dog is a cowdog, so heck- he goes, cows? COWS? COWS

What to do? Direct and do not correct...direct?

Re-focus the dog.

I did with a heel command. Pay attention to me.
I just turned left with no warning...

refocus- back to track.

Good dog.

Thank you John.

[DreamRider]

I only do positive training so I devised a method that is very sucessful in teaching dogs to track (no matter the breed).

Start with tuna fish in water (oil is messy but has a stronger scent). Using tuna will only happen the first two or three times you take the dog out as it's only used to teach the dog to use their nose.

From the start, drop one good clump, something that gives the dog a good flavor, take a step drop a small piece, do this for about 50 feet. Once the pup or young dog learns to put the head down you can start spreading out the tuna until it's finally phased out and it's tracking foot prints. Training takes about 6 months and is on going throughout the dog's life.

[denise]

I don't have the patience anymore to train dogs. If I could get a good one already trained and house broke I'd have another.
I've heard a lot of people that use natural horsemanship methods to train their dogs as well as their horses. Pretty nifty.

[vsolubo]

I used to train search/rescue dogs. A group of us would meet at a local park early on Saturday mornings & we all trained together. We used positive training, but in search/rescue since you teach scent discrimination as well as actual tracking we always had extra socks tucked into shirts. We would leave 1 sock at the beginning of the track, walk a certain distance, wave another sock at the dog while calling him, than lay down on the ground. The handler would show the dog the 1st sock and ask the dog "Where's the sock?" when the handler & the dog "found" us we would play tug of war with the dog & make the find almost a celebration.

The dog learns to follow a specific scent & ignore other people's scents, animals... It was a lot of fun.