Session 11: The Pre-SAR Evaluation

  

It was a repeat location for me, so for once easy to find.  Bright and sunny day, if a bit chilly. Obedience was first, with a healing pattern where we each weave in and out of the others. It’s a good exercise in keeping your dog’s attention, since normally they would want to sniff (or bite) the other dogs. A couple of the other dogs have issues with this, but Cino is fine at it. Then we did stays, I chose to go out of sight, which I felt quite comfortable doing, even though it is outside and off-leash. 



Down-stay

Again, Cino was fine – unlike in the next exercise, which was the drop on recall. I was thinking that he was doing really well, but then, it is different when he gets to run. So I remove his leash and tell him to stay, and start to walk away.  The first part of the exercise is fine: I call him then tell him to down. Then I call him again. At this point various other people have done the recall and are playing with their dogs around the area. Cino sees one pair and decides it would be much more fun to run over there, than to me, so off he goes. He has his e-collar on, but I am not confident that he will come back if I use it as he is running away, so I wait for him to be nearer to me, and to be stationary (which eventually happens). I then call him to come and use the collar, and he does. Exercise completed, not very satisfactorily.

 Next up was Cino’s pre-SAR evaluation, which was carried out by Fiona and Isabel. It was divided into two parts, the first was sociability towards people and other dogs. Well, I knew that bit would be fine. He was tied to a post and I went out of sight. First Harry walked past him with a dog he had not seen (smelt?) before, then he went up to him and untied him and brought him back to me. No aggression, but no great enthusiasm either, so he got a 2.75/3 (scores go from 0 to 3).  The second part, called  Motivation and Drive, was divided into three: playing with the dog (motivation) , then prey drive and finally hunt drive. First of all, I had to keep him engaged and play with a familiar toy. Well, Cino is not very into toys, so I worked very hard to keep him looking at me and playing. It actually worked quite well.  I then had an unfamiliar toy, which was a little harder, but still OK. Then he had to play with a stranger with a toy. Basically, he was not interested, but just wanted to come back to me.  The next part of this section was prey drive.  I had to throw a toy ten times, and he was supposed to go after it enthusiastically. Actually, Cino did this pretty well. Even though it was supposed to be a familiar toy, we did it with a “food purse” – Velcro closure with hot dog inside, and each time he brought it back he got to eat some. Even though I thought he did a pretty good job on this, he was only given a 1.5/3.
Finally, his hunt drive was tested.  In this case, the food purse was thrown into brush so he could not see it. This did not go well. He went and searched a bit, but then kept on coming out and back to me. I was sending him in and telling him to “find it”, even though no commands were supposed to be given. Well, he got a 1 out of 3 for this. The next three tests were supposed to be the same, but with time delays, but I guess Fiona and Isabel decided not to bother. I was also scored on Handler/Canine Interaction during the whole process. They only gave me a 1/3, which I thought was a bit stingy!

Anyway, the total is worked out by adding it all together and dividing it by the total number of tests, and the final for Motivation and Drive was a stunningly low 0.61, where if you score between 0 and 0.9 you are an “unpromising candidate”. So, that is us.

At this stage, the Board has to vote as to whether to accept me as a Trainee. Fiona and Isabel were at pains to tell me that they both liked me and my attitude, but my dog was really not up to it. They said the Board would probably decide to reject my application, but if they accepted it, I would be put on probation for a few months, then re-tested. They asked if there was any way I could get another dog. Well, this was supposed to be something for me to do with Cino! And anyway, there’s no way I am getting another dog. I don’t want three dogs, and I don’t want a Malinois, a Shepherd, or a Doberman. I wanted to do this with my poodle, and if it’s not going to work, well, all I can say is I have tried as hard as I can.  They also said that if I was put on probation, to increase Cino’s prey drive I should keep him crated all the time, and only feed him when he has “found” somebody, i.e. Georgie would have to hide in the house and Cino would have to find her to be fed. And he should not get any food if he did not find her. Well, I could just about see myself doing that bit, but not crating him all day. So even if they do offer me probation, I think the best option is for me to let them know I am withdrawing my application.
 Anyway, the rest of the session carried on in the usual way. Off I went into the wilderness with Harry, until he found a nice downed tree with a little space beneath it. This was after we had crossed a stream (yay, my boots are waterproof!) and tramped through a lot of mud. I placed my mat and wriggled my way under the tree with my backpack as a pillow.

My hiding place - with mat, camo cloth and backpack pillow



It was not that uncomfortable, and I took a little snooze.  After about an hour I was found by Isabel and one of her air-scent dogs. The tree meant that it was harder for the dog to jump all over me, but she certainly licked my face pretty comprehensively. When getting out from under the tree a whole load of stuff fell on my face and clothes. Yucky. Then I went back under, for a couple of other dogs to search for me, first Alan and Zed (more slobber), then Harry and Soho.  When I finally fully extricated myself I found out that the stuff that fell on me was fox poop. Apparently foxes like to poop on raised areas, and all members of the family go in the same place, so there was a great selection of varying freshness. On the way home in the car, the heating was on, and I realized that there was a rather unpleasant smell permeating the car, which was coming from me.