As some of you know, I am working with seizure scent - not BG - and two weeks in to training with seizure scent, my service dog, Lily, herself had two seizures within 8 days! Subsequently, she has been withdrawn from the testing phase of the Seizure Alert Project and has been placed on medical leave until she has been seizure free for six months.
I am continuing her seizure alert training, but using Earl Grey tea as the target scent. Always wondering in the back of my mind (and hoping) that eventually I will be able to transfer the "cue" to alert from Earl Grey back to the seizure scent.
What I think I am hearing from this discussion is that yes, it is entirely within the realm of possibility. Is that, in fact, what your experience tells you? But that's my first question.
My second question is: When you are training other scent disciplines, are you using different indicating behaviors to the different scents? To relate that to my work with Lily, I guess I am asking if you would reserve my seizure alert behavior for seizure scent and select a second alert behavior for her to use when alerting to Earl Grey tea.
I am continuing her seizure alert training, but using Earl Grey tea as the target scent. Always wondering in the back of my mind (and hoping) that eventually I will be able to transfer the "cue" to alert from Earl Grey back to the seizure scent.
What I think I am hearing from this discussion is that yes, it is entirely within the realm of possibility. Is that, in fact, what your experience tells you? But that's my first question.
My second question is: When you are training other scent disciplines, are you using different indicating behaviors to the different scents? To relate that to my work with Lily, I guess I am asking if you would reserve my seizure alert behavior for seizure scent and select a second alert behavior for her to use when alerting to Earl Grey tea.
Lynn,
There are some Diabetic Alert Dogs out there that were trained using this method. A year or so ago I had much better control of my BG and it was difficult to make scent samples for training. So I decided to use Pseudo Narcotic Scent instead. I taught the dogs to focus on my body and to alert when the scent appeared. Once the dogs were paired with a diabetic I transferred what the dogs already knew to Low BG Scent provided by the diabetic. Or I added the scent of Low BG .
This is a common practice when training detection dogs. We start by training the dogs to detect a scent and to alert. Then we add other scents. I trained 4 dogs using this method and all 4 are in the field doing a great job finding Low and High BG. I haven't heard of any of these dogs encountering narcotics since they were placed but, I have some stories about funny things that happened during presentations!
I taught the dogs to alert to all scent using the same alerting behavior. Since being placed some of the dogs alerting behavior was changed and they were taught different indicators for Low BG and High BG.
There are some Diabetic Alert Dogs out there that were trained using this method. A year or so ago I had much better control of my BG and it was difficult to make scent samples for training. So I decided to use Pseudo Narcotic Scent instead. I taught the dogs to focus on my body and to alert when the scent appeared. Once the dogs were paired with a diabetic I transferred what the dogs already knew to Low BG Scent provided by the diabetic. Or I added the scent of Low BG .
This is a common practice when training detection dogs. We start by training the dogs to detect a scent and to alert. Then we add other scents. I trained 4 dogs using this method and all 4 are in the field doing a great job finding Low and High BG. I haven't heard of any of these dogs encountering narcotics since they were placed but, I have some stories about funny things that happened during presentations!
I taught the dogs to alert to all scent using the same alerting behavior. Since being placed some of the dogs alerting behavior was changed and they were taught different indicators for Low BG and High BG.
Scott Smith
Lynn,
I have trained both ways and found it easier as Scott described to get the dog alerting on a scent then take it to the body.
The only thing I feel is a NO NO in scent training is in the SAR field. I think a dog should never be trained to detect both live people and Human Remains, reason being confusion.
Bill Creasy
Steve and I would recommend keeping the training as clean as possible, especially since this alert may save someone's life some day. I feel that you would not want the dog alerting on someone who just drank Earl Grey Tea. I do not recommend training an operational dog to report on an insignificant odor. Period. Especially not to report with the same behavior expected in the working context.
If you want to teach a separate odor/scent, then attach a different alert behavior. Seizure alerting is NOT the same as drug detection! The drug detection trainers want the dog to alert on all drugs in the operational phase, not just one. They are training the same alert behavior for all drugs, because all they want is the dog to find one, some or all of the drugs in the environment. Dogs who are 'dual purpose' service dogs, who search for drugs AND explosives, will be taught two different report behaviors to discriminate the two. The handlers would not want to get those two confused! Search & Rescue dogs who know how to find live and dead victims will often be taught to bark for live finds and lie down for cadavers. That said, most working dog trainers find that it works best to train single purpose dogs only--i.e. One dog for drugs, a different dog for bombs; one dog for live finds, another different dog for
cadaver. There is less confusion, fewer errors, and it's easier to maintain.
Jen White
Lynn,
Most people have multiple allergies so (in training for Anaphylactic Allergy Alert) we use the same alert behavior for the many different allergens. Essentially to the human, the alert means "Get the heck out of here!" It doesn't matter which allergen it is the dog is indicating, just that the human knows one of them is present.
The reason we started with the tea is because those wanting to train their own allergy alert dogs (to save money, develop a relationship with their dog etc), can't be near the allergen at all so we chose something they can be. Later, once fully trained, a different trainer can retrain the dog using the same process but using an actual allergen. The dog learns the new scents much faster. The reason we chose Earl Grey tea for me is because
1. I am not allergic to it
2. It's something that doesn't appear in my environment and
3. it's easy to ID at a glance what the dog is indicating (i.e. there will typically be a cup associated with it or we will see a puddle) and we can position ourselves away from it accordingly.
If I was training a seizure alert, I would personally start with one scent (seizure sample) and stick to it. Keep it as easy for the dog and you as possible.
2. It's something that doesn't appear in my environment and
3. it's easy to ID at a glance what the dog is indicating (i.e. there will typically be a cup associated with it or we will see a puddle) and we can position ourselves away from it accordingly.
If I was training a seizure alert, I would personally start with one scent (seizure sample) and stick to it. Keep it as easy for the dog and you as possible.
different scents become the cues for one behavior.
Donna Hill
Did you know when it comes to seizure alert dogs, that if you have less than one seizure a month we wont work with you? We dont want to set anyone up for failure by telling them we can train an alert dog for them if they wont be able to collect enough seizure scent samples for us to train the dog with.
Mary McNeight, Service Dog Academy
No comments:
Post a Comment