K9 Conservationists

Fringe Alerts with Stacy Barnett

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In this episode of K9 Conservationists, Kayla talks to Stacy Barnett about fringe alerts in detection dogs.

What is fringing?

  • When a dog alerts to odor outside of the preferred range of where the indication should be, aka too far away
  • The final response begins where sourcing ends, so with fringing, the sourcing ends prematurely, making the alert farther away from the scent than is preferred

    • Why does it happen?

    • The behavior chain of sourcing and alerting is off balance
      • Over-enthusiastic for the search
      • Over emphasising the alert/not enough emphasis on sourcing the odor
      • Different kind of setting with work/trial vs training
        • For a trial or working a job, you are under different stressors and you aren’t able to control the environment and set up
        • When under pressure, your behavior may be different which can be difficult for your dog to work with
        • Differentiation of odor concentration
          • If working in a situation with different odor concentrations, they may start to conclude a certain concentration of odor and start alerting to only that strength of scent
          • It may be too easy or too hard
          • Genetics is a big deal, but training is a bigger deal

            • What are ways we can fix it?

            • More balanced training sessions - both sourcing and alerting
            • “Show me” cue
            • Ignoring fringe alerts and encouraging them to keep working/”keep going” cue
            • Working to get the “show me” cue or the “keep going” cue out of the behavior chain

              • What are the downfalls of the “show me” cue?

              • Can cause your dog to rely on the handler to source
              • Can become a prompted cue to alert
              • It is important to make sure it doesn’t become part of the behavior chain

                • How do we build sourcing into our training?

                • Set up for success
                  • Smaller and shorter puzzles easy for them to source
                  • More complicated puzzles to get them back into the sourcing mindset
                  • Increase the challenge level for the dogs skill level to keep the flow going
                    • Too easy may be boring, too challenging may be too frustrating
                    • Hide placement is important in training sessions
                      • The training doesn't come from the human, the training comes from the hide

                        • Links Mentioned in the Episode:

                        • Sourcing Odor with Stacy Barrett
                        • Signal Detection Theory with Dr. Simon Gadbois

                          • Where to find Stacy Barrett:  Website | Podcast | Facebook | Instagram

                          You can support the K9 Conservationists Podcast by joining our Patreon at patreon.com/k9conservationists.

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                          K9 ConservationistsBy Kayla Fratt
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