Just in case anyone is interested...about 4 weeks ago I took lily to a sar training session. They tested her personality: how she was with people and dogs, how she reacted to a variety of things, her obedience, etc. Passing that, they tested her potential as a wilderness air scent dog, she passed the test and they said she would be trainable but she did lack some excitement about it. They tested her on human remains and she passed with flying colors. It was very obvious that this came naturally easy for her. So there it is: I'm training her for human remains detection.
The first week, I spent imprinting her on a human bone and teeth. I need to finish my hep B shots before I can work with anything else. Anyway, the 2nd week I placed the bone inside a suet cage in the living room and told lily to "get to work". When she sniffed it, I did a c/t. Eventually I worked up to an indication that she will use when she finds something: a paw touch.
3rd week, I took the items outside but out in the open. She did really well.
Tonight I put 6 bricks out and teeth in on of the bricks. I made her sniff each brick. She found the brick with the teeth and pawed it. I then reordered the bricks and added a few more and we went through it again. She got it right away. Finally I put the teeth in a mesh bag and threw it in a flower bed. Lily checked the bricks then sniffed out the teeth in the flower bed. Lily wins again.
She seems to have a lot of potential and can pick out a bone and teeth pretty easily. Our challenge now is to work with animal distractions. She failed miserably at this at our group training sessions. Rolling in dead animal stuff was more exciting than working. I'm open to brainstorming ideas! So far the best food motivator has been turkey.