Drive Building In K9 Nose Work, we build our foundation by supporting and building hunt drive for our dog's primary reinforcer. As we progress in training we begin to develop many different skills in both dog and handler that become necessary in trial settings. Keeping that drive high as we develop our "team-ness" is important. We will explore ways to build drive that also provide opportunity to build needed skills and some that may simply fill your dog with joy. :) Clarity & Precision In order for us to continue to foster success in the blind hide settings that we experience when we trial our dogs, it is critical to build clarity for our dogs and therefore for us as handlers. When our dogs are super clear on what specifically produces reinforcement, we begin to see more consistency from them in getting what we want – which is more easily readable, confident, organic behavior while at source. Alongside this clarity will emerge more precision from our dogs in solving different scent pictures, thereby improving our ability as handlers to understand what we are seeing in blind scenarios. We will identify and discuss transitions in the training process that are critical to a dog’s development of this clarity over time and when it is appropriate to make those transitions.

Sponsor:Ona Steffensen - K9 Connections
Speaker(s):Leah Gangelhoff

Contact: Ona Steffensen
 Email: knineona@gmail.com