SDA Article Search Titles

[umzilla]

Here are the rules:

http://www.servicedogsofamerica.com/...clesearch.html

These titles are offered by SDA and require an SDA scorebook. They do not require UKC registration for participation - any dog can compete as long as it has a scorebook.

Christine

[umzilla]

Here are some pictures of Fritz working on the Article Search title today.........thanks for the pictures Trish!

Sending into the search area





First find (dark green credit card)



Final find (single key)


Trial rules are posted above!

Christine

[TRITON]

You're welcome, those turned out great! It was very neat watching Fritz do that..very challenging. I may have to try that next year

We picked a challenging place to track today-they had to work hard. Emi did really well also. Hopefully some of those pics I took turned out ok.


You didn't post the picture you were telling me about

[Superpup]

Nice pics Christine!!!!! I wanna come and watch this one time, maybe try with my Cody since he has training in SAR. he should find my car keys that I lost at the forest preserve...

[Lauri & The Gang]

Ok, question on this.

I was at the SDA website and read the rules of the RAS.

The first level I understand – the dog is searching for articles with your scent on them.

But the second and third levels – how do you train a dog to search out articles that DON’T have your scent? How does the dog know which is a ‘good’ article (one dropped by the thrower) and a ‘bad’ article (the empty pop can left in the area)? Do they make SURE the area is completely clean before using it?

In real life would the dog indicate ANY articles in a given area or is the dog given a scent to look for?

[umzilla]

In the trial each search area will be completely clean, except for the thrown articles.

The idea behind this relates to police K9 work. Lets say you know that a suspect had thrown something out his car window - you would possibly take your K9 to that general area and tell them to search. The dog would indicate "random" items that might be very hard for a human to find, but then can be recovered and processed.

Hope that helps!

Christine

[laukaouda]

This looks like A LOT of fun. When doing heeling exercises I will toss the tug behind me, walk some odd patterns, free Phantom. She then has to find the tug. The other game we play is put the dog in sietz, after I throw the (ball on string or frisbee) object, wait 3 -5 seconds, she must bring it back.

I think we could easily do this type of tracking. Any ideas how it could possibly affect a dog that is being trained for Schutzhund tracking?

I thought DVG was going the way of using common objects instead of scraps of carpet, leather and wood to make it more "real world".

[umzilla]

Originally Posted By: laukaouda

I think we could easily do this type of tracking. Any ideas how it could possibly affect a dog that is being trained for Schutzhund tracking?

This question pops up alot. Personally, I don't really consider this tracking, so I don't see any conflict with SchH tracking It IS scent work for sure, but the dog is not following any track to get to the articles - the articles are thrown into the square, and no one enters the square search area ( a small difference from the STP 1-3 - random area search titles - that can be offered in Schutzhund events). I think it is possible for the dog to understand the different type scent work. My own dogs do.....I approach SchH tracking, AKC tracking, and article search titles as 3 distinctly different "sports" that we train for.

Quote:I thought DVG was going the way of using common objects instead of scraps of carpet, leather and wood to make it more "real world".

Could you be thinking of the changes that the new AWDF titles have in the higher tracking level?

I think this article search title is alot of fun and some nice variety for the dog. It is a great mental exercise and does present some training challenges! Very interesting too, to see how the different dogs respond to this exercise.

Christine

[laukaouda]

Thanks for the answer. I happen to love tracking. It is one of my favorite phases of Schutzhund.