To understand a dog’s reaction to human expressions and actions, we need to consider a few examples. Just like a little child, a puppy follows its owners/guardians. When you pick up a ball from the ground, you will notice that your puppy will pick it up after you. Every move you make the puppy copies.
This happens because the puppy is interested in the things that its owners are doing. It gets involved in practices that it observes around itself. When you show interest in anything, your dog will too. This is the purest form of communication that happens without any verbal signals. The dog shows interest in things that its owner is interested in. This is a great revelation that tells us that a dog is capable of following our commands to our will.
How Dogs Help Detect Threats
When you closely observe a protection dogs, you will come to know dogs can be trained to follow certain desirable actions. The dogs that are part of the military squads and help detect drugs, explosives, and weapons; they develop these skills upon receiving training from humans. If you start training a dog to detect drugs and explosives, you might be intimidated to use toys and treats as a way to bribe the dog to perform in a certain way. However, the thing that you are missing is that your dog will only take interest in things that you are interested in. You might find positive reinforcement training techniques helpful but if you believe that the dog is able to understand your expressions and feelings on a deeper level, you would not use such techniques while training the dog to detect explosive and drugs.
The dog will be interested in the toys more and will be distracted from the actual detection task. Therefore, it is important to understand that a dog will show interest in detection if you communicate with it in a more effective way. Dogs often make use of verbal actions to point out things to their owners. When the dog sees a stranger walking into the door, it barks to communicate with you using verbal signals. Signals like these are extremely helpful as they help keep the homeowners aware of intruders and thieves.
Focusing Your Interest
The best way to make your dog learn detection tricks is to focus your attention towards it. Do not add distractions to the training process and understand that your dog will show interest in the things you focus on. To be able to train your dog to detect drugs and explosive, you need to connect with your dog on a more spiritual level. However, many people fail to believe that dogs and humans can communicate spiritually.
When you focus on something that you want your dog’s attention at, you will witness that your dog will also put its focus on that thing. There is no need to use toys and treats to bring the dog’s attention to a desired thing because your dog will sense your signals and will put its focus on the same thing without needing any distraction.
Developing Trust
When we talk about military dogs, we need to know that these dogs are trained to detect drugs and explosives. The great thing about these dogs is that they perform their task without alarming the people in the surrounding. To train a dog to detect explosive and drugs is a complicated task. However, with the help of trust, the desired results can be achieved rather easily.
The handler and its dog should have a bond of trust. The handler should be able to trust the dog’s every action and similarly, the dog should trust the handler for every action that they command it to perform. This bond of trust can only be formed if the trainer and the dog are connected spiritually.
During detection training, the handler should be able to trust the dog’s instincts. It is not a good practice to discourage the dog for its judgment. To be able to benefit from the dog’s detection skills, you need to trust it.
Teaching the Dog to Communicate in an Improved Way
Dogs are super active and possessive about their owners. Moreover, they protect their owners from harm and threats. We often find our dogs barking at strangers on the road. However, instead of considering the dog’s behavior or trying to understand the message that it is trying to communicate, we correct it for barking loudly at someone. We need to consider the signals that our dogs send us. Instead of trying to teach it a better way of communicating, we correct its behavior by making it wear a collar or by scolding it.
You need to train your dog to communicate in a way that is acceptable for you and everyone else. However, to do so you need to understand that a dog is capable of communicating in several other ways including non-verbal signals. Therefore, train your dog to silently communicate with you without making everyone aware. The dogs in military are trained to send silent signals to their handlers. They do so because they are responsible for detecting threats that may cause panic in others. Dogs can also be trained to detect bed bugs, other animals, weapons, and molds. However, the key is to understand that they can be trained to detect things in a subtle way.
Communication through Sound, Scent, Thought, and Intent
A dog communicates with humans in a variety of ways including scent, sound, thought, and intent. Therefore, as dog handlers, owners, guardians, and trainers, we need to understand that a dog’s communication skills are beyond the physical realm. If we just believe in our dogs and their capability of connecting with us, we will come to know that there are several ways to stay in touch with the dog and the signals that it is trying to send to us.