Service Dog Training Day Four and Five

Skin cells tell Red how to find Nick. Humans shed 10's of thousands of skin cells a minute. Humans have 5 million olfactory cells. Service dogs bred to do tracking have up to 225 million olfactory cells. This super sized smelling power of autism service dogs enables them follow the trail of the shed skin cells of the autistic child that has wandered off, and find him or her.

This is a summary of what we have been learning in the last few days from Jeremy, the training director at 4 Paws. After lots of classroom explanation, we have gone to a different parks or fields every day to practice. Red and the other dogs have memorized the scent of 4 Paws trainers. In the past three days Nick has been sent out to hide with a different trainer and family member each day. The purpose of rotating people that hide with Nick, while having Nick go out every day, is to help Red pick up the consistent scent of Nick. Today Nick was sent to hide without a trainer and with just his dad John and brother Joey. Red did a very successful track, finding Nick within 2-3 minutes. This signifies that Red has Nick's scent memorized and will hold it in his memory for 2-3 years. To keep Red's memory fresh, all we have to do is practice, and he will remember it again for a couple of years. Nick's dad and mom, however, have a lot of practice to do to learn to read Red's tracking skills. This is something we may have to do almost daily for the next month or two so that we are completely comfortable with it if the time ever comes when Nick is lost and we are panicked. To the dog, tracking is a game. To parents, it's a skill that could save their child's life.

I lack the skills to run behind Red while he's tracking and take pictures at the same time, so I got a picture of another family doing a track with Jeremy and another trainer (picture on the left). The picture on the right is us waiting our turn for tracking along with other families.