The Dog Coach

08/12/2025

Patrick Curran and I have been working toward a shared goal: making Scrabble a truly reliable cadaver dog.

We’ve been taking this step by step, piecing everything together in a way that creates clarity — not just for us as handlers, but for Scrabble as well. Lately our focus has been on building duration and separating behaviors, so each cue has a clear meaning and purpose.

We’ve been reinforcing the difference between “good” and “yes.”
Good means continue — stay on task, build duration, remain engaged.
Yes means the task is complete.

That distinction has made a big difference in Scrabble’s understanding and confidence on odor.

Last week, we introduced a speak-for-reward, and that behavior will now be layered onto a sit or down at odor as we move forward with our TFR (final response). Every piece is intentional, and we’re seeing it come together in a really strong way. Ingram Fire Department

05/12/2025

Shaping hypoglycemia indication

28/11/2025

Trained final response in the works. A short clip from about a 30 minute session

28/11/2025

Today we’re reminded how thankful we are for the opportunity to work with Scrabble and all of our dogs — whether they’re cadaver dogs, mold dogs, protection dogs, or service dogs.

Tonight we brought Scrabble back to one of our foundational drills, building off this morning’s session where we focused on teaching the difference between “good” and “yes.”

We spent a lot of time developing drive, clarity, and obedience to odor. A lot of one-and-done reps to keep things sharp.

For anyone curious about the language we use:

“Good” means continue the behavior. Maintain duration, stay committed to the task. You may receive reward during this window — the point is to extend and strengthen the behavior.

“Yes” means you’re done, that’s the completion marker. It ends the behavior and leads directly into reward.

Both are correct, both matter — but they serve entirely different purposes in shaping a reliable detection dog.

Every day we get to do this work is a blessing. Thank you all for following along on Scrabble’s journey. 🖤🐾

You can do this at the start, middle or end, you also dont have to, it's something we do as a structure within our programs.

This odor gets you paid. Stay in it.

This is a great drill to do throughout time with your dogs whether it is a food or toy. Push your button activate play.

27/11/2025

Happy Thanksgiving to all!

23/11/2025

Left the door open = time to go. Biscuit Queen is definitely a ride or die of mine. This morning I pray for he and all of the dogs start living to 16 and beyond 🙏

23/11/2025

He is working for his dinner, post find.

Notice after first primary time when he didn't receive a paycheck correlated to the period of time he stayed on odor. He left. Circled where it traveled. I called him, he didn't immediately recall and I didn't correct him because he's sourcing the odor actively.

We are in it. What's his pay, we used good for some praise. It should be valuable enough to maintain time on odor not hyping him up this will have him exit all together. Notice when he came off I stopped praise. No pets, pets when nose to odor. Goods spaced apart in future. We are using the marked pet to confirm the precise behavior at the end of the search.

Our Trained Final Resoonse

23/11/2025