Once Sappho learned the "search" command, and demonstrated with repeated short runaways that she was learning how to play the game, the game got harder, and the runaways a bit longer. The next step for Sappho is to introduce her to her bringsel. The bringsel is the type of alert I prefer in wilderness search but there are many different types and a handler needs to find out which alert suits their dog. To begin to train the alert, Connie, our "missing person" will do a short runaway, herself holding the bringsel. When Sappho performs the find as in the past, Connie will not praise her as before but will essentially stay as still as possible and simply put the bringsel into Sappho's mouth. Once I see that Sappho has the bringsel in her mouth I give her the "bring it" command. If it doesn't work perfectly the first time don't be discouraged. Once Sappho brings the bringsel back to me, I take it from her mouth and give her the "show me" command. Allowing Sappho to stay a bit ahead of me, we both run back into Connie and the praise begins. Be sure to praise your dog for a good long time (2-4 minutes) with the dogs favorite toy and/or treats.
Here Connie is showing Sappho the bringsel before we start the search problem. You want your dog to like their bringsel, but not too much! Don't use the bringsel as a toy for the dog. In later stages of bringsel training, instead of being held by the lost person, the bringsel is attached to the dog's collar. Once the Sappho comes into the person she is looking for she will take the bringsel hanging on her collar, into her mouth and begin to perform her alert and refind. A dog who just loves to play with the bringsel can give false alerts
As with every stage of training, if your dog has difficulty learning a particular task, don't be afraid to take a step back, get your dog more solid on the previous behavior, assess your own training methods,, and try again later. When I first introduced the bringsel to Sappho, I made the runaways shorter than she had been previosly doing. As she becomes more solid with her bringsel I will start pushing the distance once again. For now, one thing at a time. Once all dogs have finished training for the day, we always allow time for them to play and romp around. At one of the areas that we train there is a nice stream. As you can imagine we are usually putting wet and happy dogs back into the car.
