My dog is Bored, What is the problem

I often hear handlers say their dog is bored when displaying less than enthusiastic interest when searching. One problem humans have when training dogs are, they may not understand what a dog is doing or misinterpreted the body language. Ask yourself, is a dog bored when they do not show interest or are they bored because of many deployments without receiving any stimulus or reward? An example of a dog that is disinterested while searching a vehicle might show a dog not searching the productive areas, just walking straight ahead. The only odor they will detect is what comes across their noses. We know that available odor depends on the packaging, vapor pressure, and air movement. It is possible for a dog that is not actively searching to have a high probability of a miss.

Likewise, we know that dogs will include the environment in which they work and train. This includes understanding patterns and places where they have had success and where they never find anything. An extraordinary example of this is an area where I observed dogs that searched hundreds of vehicles a day. Once during a dog's shift, a vehicle, the same type of vehicle and the same color each time, came through the search area or parked nearby. This vehicle contained an odor, and the dog was rewarded with a successful indication. This same pattern was presented every day to the dogs. The dogs soon realized that the only vehicle that they could receive their reward was that vehicle. They showed boredom or disinterest in every other vehicle. Additionally, every vehicle that came by that was the same type as the target one often produced an indication of odor. The dogs would give a final response where there was no odor.

The answer to a dog that looks bored might include training that increases with the number of deployments without a reward. Furthermore, it would help if you changed your training to include different ways to present the target odor. The appearance of boredom can be a motivational problem.

 

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