Reading Dog by Dr. Miles Arakaki
I was the typical government employee; feet on the desk, browsing through some administrative paperwork, when I heard the swish of the outer doors and the clicking of nails on linoleum. I poked my head out of my office and saw a handler trainee leading a young black Labrador retriever down the hallway to the back clinic. “Hey Sir, Harlow’s shutting down in training and they told me to get her checked out.,” the handler said.
Harlow was a 3-year-old spayed female dog, and one of the explosive detection candidates in the current mine detection dog handler course. There was nothing else going on that morning, and I did a full physical examination along with complete bloodwork in order to find a medical reason for her degrading performance. Her vitals were normal, and I did not detect any abnormalities on her physical exam. Her bloodwork was completely clean. “I don’t think there’s anything wrong with this dog,” I said, and the handler dejectedly headed up back the hill to the training area with his dog in tow.
Harlow was not the first dog to visit over the past several weeks. Anytime a dog started showing performance deficits, the trainers would send them down for a medical check. They all checked out, and there was general grumbling amongst the schoolhouse staff that we were getting the reject dogs from our source in Texas. I had been pondering this question and wondered whether there was something wrong with our training methodology. I decided to head up the hill and observe just what all the fuss was about.
The class was training in an open field running search lanes. Mine dogs operate differently from other types of explosive detection dogs due to the specific odor signature of the target devices. The dogs are expected to search an area in straight lines with their noses close to the ground. Pots were buried in straight lanes marked with cloth engineer tape. One pot in each lane had a small amount of TNT that the dog was expected to alert on. Simon was the head trainer, an ex-British Regimental Sergeant Major for their Army Veterinary Corps, and had decades of experience training and running military working dogs. He was very much regimented, very much set in his ways. I got a brief run down as to the problem with Harlow (she wasn’t keeping her nose down), and his opinion that Texas was sending us poor quality dogs.
Harlow and her handler were the next team to run the lanes, and the first thing I did was clear my mind of any expectations of what I was to see. Going in with a blank slate minimizes the chances of bias clouding my interpretation of the situation and allows me to focus on the fine details that may identify the source of the problem. Harlow’s handler walked up to Lane 1 and placed the dog in a SIT. He gave the search command, and the dog pulled forward. Immediately, I saw her head drop down like it was supposed to, then rise up and down as if there was an aversion to something in that lane. She continued this way halfway down Lane 1, then her head went down and stayed in the proper position. My interpretation was that the dog knew what she was expected to do but was being discouraged from doing so at least during the first half of Lane 1. I kept my mouth shut and allowed her to continue the problem. She showed the same signs on Lanes 2 and 3 but performed well on Lanes 4 to 6.
As the handler led the dog away to the break area, a look of frustration on his face from the poor showing, I told Simon what I was seeing. “I don’t think there’s anything wrong with the dog, there’s something wrong with the first half of Lanes 1 to 3. She’s balking during the first half of the first 3 lanes, but is searching fine the rest of the time.” Simon wasn’t buying it. He argued that the dog had poor drive. At that moment, the next team, another black lab, started the problem. We watched, and there it was again, not as pronounced as Harlow, but the same signs on Lane 1 – 3. Assistant trainer Andy, another ex-British Army dog handler, called out, “He’s right. I see what he’s talking about!” Simon took a hard look at the dog as he worked the rest of the lanes, and his facial expression confirmed that he recognized the change. It was trainer Roach, an ex-combat engineer, who solved the riddle. The cloth tape was stretched tight to mark a completely straight lane, but the uneven field surface dipped in the first half of Lanes 1 - 3, so the tape was raised off the ground. As the dogs worked, their dropped noses hit the taught edge of the tape which “punished” the desired behavior the same way our fingers get beaten up by paper cuts. Once past the low section, the tape was flush with the ground surface, and the dogs were no longer getting tapped in the nose. We fixed the problem by lowering the tape flush with the surface.
Sometimes people make up excuses for a dog’s behavior even before getting deep into training. “Rover acts this way because he must have been abused as a puppy,” or “Ginger is like that because of her breed.” That may all be true, but it could also be that the training plan sucks. Any chance of solving a behavioral problem begins with clearing the head of bias, and objectively observing the dog’s actions in relation to stimulus and environment. The signs may be extremely subtle and require a clear head to recognize them at the moment. Learning to identify the fine details also enable one to adjust training to the specific needs of the individual. Every individual responds differently to different stimulus, and the ability to customize training to one’s strengths and weaknesses relies on a trainer’s ability to read and objectively interpret behavior. A lot of people can function in the black and white zones, but the really unique ones shine in the grays.
Harlow and the rest of her pack continued to perform well after adjustments were made to the lanes. I had done my good deed for the day and headed back down to the office to continue sorting through my own lanes of bureaucratic paperwork.
Harlow was a 3-year-old spayed female dog, and one of the explosive detection candidates in the current mine detection dog handler course. There was nothing else going on that morning, and I did a full physical examination along with complete bloodwork in order to find a medical reason for her degrading performance. Her vitals were normal, and I did not detect any abnormalities on her physical exam. Her bloodwork was completely clean. “I don’t think there’s anything wrong with this dog,” I said, and the handler dejectedly headed up back the hill to the training area with his dog in tow.
Harlow was not the first dog to visit over the past several weeks. Anytime a dog started showing performance deficits, the trainers would send them down for a medical check. They all checked out, and there was general grumbling amongst the schoolhouse staff that we were getting the reject dogs from our source in Texas. I had been pondering this question and wondered whether there was something wrong with our training methodology. I decided to head up the hill and observe just what all the fuss was about.
The class was training in an open field running search lanes. Mine dogs operate differently from other types of explosive detection dogs due to the specific odor signature of the target devices. The dogs are expected to search an area in straight lines with their noses close to the ground. Pots were buried in straight lanes marked with cloth engineer tape. One pot in each lane had a small amount of TNT that the dog was expected to alert on. Simon was the head trainer, an ex-British Regimental Sergeant Major for their Army Veterinary Corps, and had decades of experience training and running military working dogs. He was very much regimented, very much set in his ways. I got a brief run down as to the problem with Harlow (she wasn’t keeping her nose down), and his opinion that Texas was sending us poor quality dogs.
Harlow and her handler were the next team to run the lanes, and the first thing I did was clear my mind of any expectations of what I was to see. Going in with a blank slate minimizes the chances of bias clouding my interpretation of the situation and allows me to focus on the fine details that may identify the source of the problem. Harlow’s handler walked up to Lane 1 and placed the dog in a SIT. He gave the search command, and the dog pulled forward. Immediately, I saw her head drop down like it was supposed to, then rise up and down as if there was an aversion to something in that lane. She continued this way halfway down Lane 1, then her head went down and stayed in the proper position. My interpretation was that the dog knew what she was expected to do but was being discouraged from doing so at least during the first half of Lane 1. I kept my mouth shut and allowed her to continue the problem. She showed the same signs on Lanes 2 and 3 but performed well on Lanes 4 to 6.
As the handler led the dog away to the break area, a look of frustration on his face from the poor showing, I told Simon what I was seeing. “I don’t think there’s anything wrong with the dog, there’s something wrong with the first half of Lanes 1 to 3. She’s balking during the first half of the first 3 lanes, but is searching fine the rest of the time.” Simon wasn’t buying it. He argued that the dog had poor drive. At that moment, the next team, another black lab, started the problem. We watched, and there it was again, not as pronounced as Harlow, but the same signs on Lane 1 – 3. Assistant trainer Andy, another ex-British Army dog handler, called out, “He’s right. I see what he’s talking about!” Simon took a hard look at the dog as he worked the rest of the lanes, and his facial expression confirmed that he recognized the change. It was trainer Roach, an ex-combat engineer, who solved the riddle. The cloth tape was stretched tight to mark a completely straight lane, but the uneven field surface dipped in the first half of Lanes 1 - 3, so the tape was raised off the ground. As the dogs worked, their dropped noses hit the taught edge of the tape which “punished” the desired behavior the same way our fingers get beaten up by paper cuts. Once past the low section, the tape was flush with the ground surface, and the dogs were no longer getting tapped in the nose. We fixed the problem by lowering the tape flush with the surface.
Sometimes people make up excuses for a dog’s behavior even before getting deep into training. “Rover acts this way because he must have been abused as a puppy,” or “Ginger is like that because of her breed.” That may all be true, but it could also be that the training plan sucks. Any chance of solving a behavioral problem begins with clearing the head of bias, and objectively observing the dog’s actions in relation to stimulus and environment. The signs may be extremely subtle and require a clear head to recognize them at the moment. Learning to identify the fine details also enable one to adjust training to the specific needs of the individual. Every individual responds differently to different stimulus, and the ability to customize training to one’s strengths and weaknesses relies on a trainer’s ability to read and objectively interpret behavior. A lot of people can function in the black and white zones, but the really unique ones shine in the grays.
Harlow and the rest of her pack continued to perform well after adjustments were made to the lanes. I had done my good deed for the day and headed back down to the office to continue sorting through my own lanes of bureaucratic paperwork.
