Kiba following trail to tower – Kocher seminar
In March 2013 SDN assisted TC Crippen, Seeker Dogs, Inc In hosting a trailing seminar with instructor Kevin Kocher. Attendees came from College Station, Bryan, Dallas, Fort Worth, Texarkana, Kansas, and other surrounding areas. Kevin’s health is deteriorating so for many of us, this was a once in a lifetime opportunity. Kevin has written a book called “The Kocher Method” describing his successful training methods. These methods have been adopted both nationally and internationally in places such as Germany, Ukraine, Netherlands, France, Italy, and elsewhere. Several members of SDN volunteered to be “rabbits” (trail layers) and learn more about this training style. Others assisted with food preparation to help attendees and instructors stay focused on the training (and maybe the desserts!)
Kiba and Jeannette in training
Kevin’s method is extremely motivational, teaching the dog to follow scent rather than search for it. One dog, Kiba, from SDN participated in the seminar and has improved leaps and bounds in the past few months using the Kocher method. Several topics that were covered in the seminar include high finds, car pickups, drownings, crime scenarios, starting a new puppy, and plenty of urban search scenarios with cement as the trailing medium. Kevin helped everyone think critically and creatively about situations that they may encounter in a call out and taught them to expose their dogs to as many things as possible.
Rewarding Kiba for finding Cindy
SDN is extremely grateful for the experience Kevin and his instructors provided us with. We hope to bring along many more dogs with the help of his method and expertise. If you are interested in his method please visit http://www.bloodhoundtraining.com/for more information and feel free to come to a training to watch our dogs work! Or learn to be a rabbit!
Kiba and Jeannette following a trail