NW330: Bulletproof Skills for Both Ends of the Leash

What is the #1 BIGGEST difference between an OK search and a STELLAR search?

ENGAGEMENT

When we talk about Engagement in Nosework, we are talking about FOCUS + INTEREST.  We can have a dog who is focused on the search and they might do ok, but if we can tease out the interest in the dog, we can develop an extra spark in the dog's work.  This week, we are going to build Engagement in the dog.  Although we are working on Engagement specifically for this week, building and more importantly, maintaining Engagement, is something that needs to occur throughout the career of the dog.

In fact, you can have all the skills in the world, but you will never have that SPARK, unless you work on Engagement!

Is there a relationship between Engagement and Drive?

No.  Absolutely not.  Is it easier to get a higher drive dog engaged?  Sure...  but that goes for working a higher drive dog in all sports.  However, engagement is absolutely possible for any and all drive levels.  Why?  Because ENGAGEMENT = FOCUS + INTEREST.  To better explain, let's look at a couple of examples...

Here's an example of a high drive dog fully engaged in a search...  this is Prize, my youngest dog working a set of 3 odor problems.  The first hide is under a brick in the sun that is wrapping towards my start line and also blowing back towards the camera where it converges with a hide that is on an elevated ladder in a recessed closet.  There is also a hide on the stairs that the dog need to take to get to the ladder odor.  The stairs hide surprises the dogs as they move through a typical "point of conveyence" and Prize, because she is fully engaged, fully sources the hide on the stairs before proceeding.  Although she is a naturally high drive dog, the engagement is evident in her emotions.  EMOTIONS is where Engagement is born!

Here's another example, this time of my much lower drive, and much older, Miniature American Shepherd, Why.  In this search I have set two challenging hides.  The first hide is under one of the twin size beds and the other is on the hinge of the second bed.  Watch how his interest level seems to increase during the search...

Both dogs have vastly different drive levels but both are completely engaged.

Let's focus on some key points that we have just covered...

EMOTIONS is where Engagement is born!

This means that we need to focus on the EMOTIONS of the dog.  The first part of that is COMFORT and SAFETY.  Consider Maslow's Hierarchy...  Safety is right above being warm and fed.

What this tells us is that if we want to have a fully committed and engaged dog, we must FIRST satisfy the dog's need to feel safe in the environment.  If your dog has challenges there, we need to address this first.  This is why Confidence is FIRST thing we look to when the dog has problems searching!

We actually move up the Pyramid and leverage the top when we address the second point... let's talk about this more.

ENGAGEMENT = FOCUS + INTEREST

We can have a FOCUSED dog...  a dog who is not concerned with distactions and is working only on the task at hand... but we don't have an Engaged dog unless the dog is ENGROSSED in the search.

Consider this...  your mother is coming over to visit.  Your floors have dog hair on them, because well...  you have dogs!  So you rush around vacuuming so that you don't have to worry that your mother will think that you don't keep your house tidy.  Yeah, you are focused...  and you get the job done.  But do you feel like you are at the top of Maslow's Pyramid?  Do you feel Self-Actualized?  Hardly.

Then later that night, roughly 10 PM, you open that book you have been waiting to read.  Your favorite author has just come out with a sequel to the cliffhanger that you read last year and you have been waiting very impatiently for the next book to come out!  Before you know it, it's 1 AM... where did time go?  Guess what, you were ENGAGED!

By increasing the interest level in our searches, we can give our dogs the same feeling that you get reading that book in bed.  The same feeling where you lose track of time because you are so engrossed in that new novel.  For our dogs, we want them to be engrossed too.  By changing HOW we set hides, we shift the dog up to the top of Maslow's pyramid.  THIS is where we get incredible searches!

Are you still skeptical?  Ok...  let's look at the same dog working 2 different types of problems...  with 2 different levels of engagement...

This is Brava...  she gets bored REALLY easily, especially when searching areas that she has searched before.  This is an example where she is working...  but NOT engaged...  she goes through the motions and finds the hide, but there is really no JOY here.

This is the exact same dog...  here I have given her a hide and situation that engrosses her.  She is in a fairly novel location working a complicated hide in a very interesting area that allows her to use her body and her nose.  THIS is an engaged search!

So how we we get this level of engagement?

In order to get the dog Engaged, we need to match the challenge of the search to the skill level of the dog so that they are pushed...  enough, but not too much.  Engagement is created by encouraging the dog to problem solve.  Problem solving can include interesting or complicated air flow or simply the opportunity to work a type of hide that the dog has not seen before.  Remember the hide under the bed that Why found?  That sort of hide totally surprised him and made the search new and interesting to him.  

This week, we will utilize methods to increase interest in your searching by changing where you search and how you set your hides!  

So let's get started!!