Our 'Current Focus' is starting to pay off! This week saw Bailey give his first spontaneous alerts to Jason's HIGH blood sugars.
The first alert was early in the week but Bailey gave a low instead of a high signal, so I went back to basics. The high signal is a 'lie', so we practiced performing this as a trick on it's own. He showed me very quickly that he knew what 'lie' was, so we practiced this a couple of times a day for few days to make sure this was rock solid.
To see whether he would offer the right signal to the high BG odour, I planted a high scent source out of sight on a dining chair when Bailey was out of the room playing with my daughter. When they came back in I watched and waited for him to pick up the scent on his own and hopefully offer me the correct signal. I went about what I was doing and watched him out of the corner of my eye. He detected the scent in the room straight away and got very excited as he followed it through the air to where it was located.
I have been reading how the scent moved through the air like smoke and this is evident when you watch him during training like this. It took him around two minutes to locate the scent source in a twenty foot square room. He went to carry the tube containing the scent source away, so I removed it from him and verbally cued him for the high signal. He signaled correctly and lay down.
I decided to test how reliable his high signal was again by hiding the high scent source on myself when he was out of the room and wait for him to pick up on it and alert me. I did this half a dozen times this week, including planting it on Jason, and every time he located the scent within a short period of time and signaled correctly without any prompting.
Finally, I played a game with Bailey which involved placing the high and low scent tubes six feet apart, and with Bailey on a leash, walked him near the low scent source first and let him have a sniff. He alerted correctly. I walked him away and then back to the low scent source again and waited for him to alert me again which he did. Now for the BIG one... I walked him over to the high scent source and hooray, he gave the correct signal for this too.
And all this work is paying off with real time highs too. On the weekend, I was about to test Jason's BGL's when Bailey went up and sniffed Jason's mouth and promptly bumped me and then lay down.
After a little tweaking, and some sound advice from my trusted mentor, I feel that we're back on track and moving forward nicely.
The first alert was early in the week but Bailey gave a low instead of a high signal, so I went back to basics. The high signal is a 'lie', so we practiced performing this as a trick on it's own. He showed me very quickly that he knew what 'lie' was, so we practiced this a couple of times a day for few days to make sure this was rock solid.
To see whether he would offer the right signal to the high BG odour, I planted a high scent source out of sight on a dining chair when Bailey was out of the room playing with my daughter. When they came back in I watched and waited for him to pick up the scent on his own and hopefully offer me the correct signal. I went about what I was doing and watched him out of the corner of my eye. He detected the scent in the room straight away and got very excited as he followed it through the air to where it was located.
I have been reading how the scent moved through the air like smoke and this is evident when you watch him during training like this. It took him around two minutes to locate the scent source in a twenty foot square room. He went to carry the tube containing the scent source away, so I removed it from him and verbally cued him for the high signal. He signaled correctly and lay down.
I decided to test how reliable his high signal was again by hiding the high scent source on myself when he was out of the room and wait for him to pick up on it and alert me. I did this half a dozen times this week, including planting it on Jason, and every time he located the scent within a short period of time and signaled correctly without any prompting.
Finally, I played a game with Bailey which involved placing the high and low scent tubes six feet apart, and with Bailey on a leash, walked him near the low scent source first and let him have a sniff. He alerted correctly. I walked him away and then back to the low scent source again and waited for him to alert me again which he did. Now for the BIG one... I walked him over to the high scent source and hooray, he gave the correct signal for this too.
And all this work is paying off with real time highs too. On the weekend, I was about to test Jason's BGL's when Bailey went up and sniffed Jason's mouth and promptly bumped me and then lay down.
After a little tweaking, and some sound advice from my trusted mentor, I feel that we're back on track and moving forward nicely.