Week 15

We are finally here! I am so ready to be done with class! I have got spring fever. My assignments are all finished, I am just doing some fine tuning! Good Luck to all in the future.

Week 14

This week I have been polishing my paper. I have really enjoyed my topic and I am glad I "thought out side of the box" for this one. I am a pretty set guy on what I do and don't like, so this assignment was difficult because it forced me out of my comfort zone. I am looking forward to this being the end of the semester.

Week 12

Sorry this post is late I didn't realize I hadn't done it until this week. I realized that I may want to change my topic from Narnia to C.S. Lewis but nothing is final yet. I am sure my resources will be endless and I look forward to starting the outline of my paper.

Week 13

I have been working hard and have decided to write about the relationship between C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien. So far I have found lots of valuable information concerning them. I have found a couple of articles on the internet and several books from our local library. I am starting to fill in all the blanks of my outline and I hope to start the actual writing on Monday. I hope all is well with everyone else.

Research Journal 04/16/2008

I am so glad my paper is finally done! All I am waiting for now is copyright acceptance from my local newspaper. I guess the request slipped through everyone's hand and it turns out everyone thought the other one took care of it. OOOOPS. Oh well, I will be picking it up tomorrow. I haven't been researching anymore on my research paper, but I have begun to look up info about the book I have chosen to write about. I am going to write about C.S. Lewis's "The Magician's Nephew". I have all the Narnia books. Unfortunately, I am not going to have time to read 800 pages. I hope all is well for everyone.

Research Journal 4/13/2008

Hello all. I can't tell you how glad I am going to be when this semester is over. My research project is going okay. I have found that I don't have time for anything else in my life. I thought I was overwhelmed and then I realized we also have a literary essay due at the end of the semester. AAHHHH. I am on overload at this point. I would rather turn in one great paper then two crappy ones. Hopefully I can get over the hump and still bust out two good papers. I hope everyone else is doing well! Croner

Field Research

This week has been a great week for field research. We have been re-certifing our dogs in not only narcotics but patrol stuff as well. Meaning that many dogs from northern colorado get together and we are re-tested (along with our dogs) to make sure we still know what we are doing. Comforting Huh?! We passed with flying colors but it is always nice to see how other handlers deal with different situations. I had a chance to speak with several of the other handlers and recieved some great information. I can't wait to put it in my paper.

ENG 112 Field Research

Most of my great info is coming from my field research. I am in the process of gathering lot's of information from other K9 handlers as well as retired handlers. My K9 conference lead me to so many resources that know the problem will be deciding which ones to use.

This week I found a website that branched out into several different websites that I never knew about.

www.policek9.com
I used keywords: tracking, and articles
03-21-2008
Hundreds of hits-the website didn't have an exact count
Relevance is above and beyond a 5!

Research Journal 3/18/08

After reviewing all of the different sources that are available to me, I have figured out that websites and wikis will be more benefical to me and with that in some way search engines, metacrawlers and web directories will all help me. I have found that blogs aren't all that helpful and I would not be comfortable using some of the information.

Research Journal 3/2/08

Since my return from Las Vegas I have found several different websites to further my research. Also, while reviewing search engines for our internet research project, I found several more topics using the keywords
-Dogs
-tracking
-Police Canine
-American Working Dogs
The hits on these keywords were amazing. The one thing I have to be careful of is the amount of items that came up that had nothing to do with my topic. I have to be very careful and pay attention. If you haven't checked out AltaVista then do it was a great search engine! I also have lots of information coming from trainers around the world, my info should be here early this week.

Research Journal

I have come to a stand still on more searches. I am currently in Las Vegas so next week I will have lots more to add. If they don't keep me to busy I may be able to update while I am here.

Articles and Databases

I found several articles that are going to be very helpful for my topic.

1-Gazit, Irit
-The role of context specifity in learning: the effects of training context on explosives detection in dogs.
-Animal Cognition
-Volume 8, issue 3
-July 2005
-Pages 143-150

2-Horvath, Zsuzsanna
-Three different Styles in police dogs exposed to short term challenge.
-Hormones and Behavior
-Volume 52, issue 5
- December 2007
-Pages 621-630

3-Moore, George
-Meteorological influence on the occurence of gastric dilation-volvulus in military working dogs in Texas
-Inernational Journal of Biometeorology
-Volume 52, issue 3
-January 2008
-Pages 219-222

4-Evans, Rebecca
-Causes for discharge of military working dogs from service: 268 cases (2000-2004)
-Journal of American Veterinary Medical Association
-Volume 231, issue 8
-October 15, 2007
-Pages 1215-1220

5-Gazit, Irit
-A simple system for the remote detection and analysis of sniffing in explosives detection dogs
-Behavior Research Methods, Instruments, and Computers
-Volume 35, Issue 1
-February 2003
-Pages 82-89

* I have a couple of authors in here that deal with expolsive sniffing dogs, but I went ahead and used the information because some of the techniques are the same.

I am having a very difficult time finding search engines that hit directly on the money. Because of the kind of tracking that my partnere and I do, the information I will need, will come from other K9 handlers or other agencies. Some of the places I have already begun to research is, the Larimer County Sherriffs Department K9 team, Loveland Police Department trainer Rod Bretches, and I will be attending a conference in Las Vegas next week.

I have found several books that will work great for my paper.
1. Sandy Bryson- Author
Police Dog Tactics
Actual book no volume used or name of series
Canada-Published
Detselig Enterprises LTD.- Pulisher
2000-copyright

2. Ed Presnall
Mastering Variable Surface Tracking: The Component Training Approach
Unkown last bit of info due to the book being temp. unavailable

I have several materials that are waiting for me at my conference that I will be attending next week. I am going to update my Blog again when I have more information.

Week 2 Discussion in Week 3

I did not get any feedback from other students on how I should or could narrow my topic. One fellow student asked if I would be speaking about multiple breeds and mainly I will only be talking about the Belgian Malinois because that is the dog I work with. I don't think I could narrow my topic down even more, unless someone else has any suggestions!

Keywords

How can my K9 and I become a more consistently productive tracking team?

K9
Dog
Service Dog
Canidea
Partner

Consistently
Consistent
Systematically
In-consistent
Day to Day

Productivity
Successful
Originative
Creative
Fruitful
Generative
Good

Tracking
Trailing
Follow
Chase

Team
Squad
Partners
Group

During this exercise I first read on how to start with your original words and turn them into keywords. I did the exercise on the “Using my research question to generate search terms.” This exercise proved to be most helpful when it came to breaking down my question. Also this question made me realize that my original question wasn’t good enough and so I changed it. I used several of the listed websites, but mainly I used: Word Source and Think map Visual Thesaurus. These two websites were very easy to navigate. This assignment showed me how to use my words in different ways. I was finding that I was struggling on websites to find information, now I feel with these new “alternative” words I will be able to broaden my research. I also added some words that mean the opposite of what I am meaning in my question because some of the best articles you can find are the ones who oppose you.

My actual Research Question

My actual research question is: How can my K9 and I become a more consistently productive tracking team?

Chapter 3 tutorial

My research project-

1.
Could you use any dog to track?
How does a dog pick up a track?
Should people walk in the path of a possible track?
What kinds of tracks are there?
When would multiple K9's be called out for a track?
Where can a dog track,ie: water, or attics?
Who can K9's track?
Why would a K9 lose a track?
Would a K9 pick up the wrong scent?

2. All of my questions could relate well to a research paper, however I would choose the question-Where can a dog track, ie: water, or attics.

3. Although dogs have the ability to go virtually anywhere, we know that some areas may be deemed unsafe or unstable.

4. My research topic requires that I be open to all possibilities and so I may have to change directions at some point.

5. In my previous post I added some websites that have really good information on K9 tracking.

3.

Taggs

I have found several websites to tag, although mainly I am going to have get books on tracking and go from there.

http://www.nwk9.com/nwk9_bookstore_track.htm

http://www.workingdogs.com/doc0181.htm

http://www.vetmed.ucdavis.edu/CCAB/service_dogs.html

http://www.vetmed.ucdavis.edu/CCAB/police.html

So far these websites have been very helpful in learning more about dog tracking.

Research Topics

I chose police canines used for tracking. I am a police canine handler, but I don't know very much about using the dogs for tracking. I have a dog as a partner at work instead of the traditional fellow officer. I utilize my partner for several things, least of all tracking. I can't communicate with him like I can with a person, so its hard to know what I did wrong when something goes bad. I want to be the best at the most difficult task.

I have been a canine handler for almost 2 years. I work well with my partner in most situations, however, I have a lot of problems when it comes to tracking the bad guy on the street. I know my partner can track people because we have found one bad guy so far. I know the bad guy gives off scent. I know my partner is able to detect the scent. I know that the training we have received isn't realistic when it is compared to real life situations. The handler needs more training than the dog.

I want to know the intricacies about tracking. Since we don't specialize in tracking it is hard to get the information when there is so much else to do. I want to learn how to give my partner the best advantage possible in locating the suspect. I want to learn the best way to direct my partner from the beginning. I want to learn how to make my own luck when it comes to a bad scenario. I want to learn how to become consistently proficient in the hardest task a canine team is faced with.

Research Topics

I chose police canines used for tracking. I am a police canine handler, but I don't know very much about using the dogs for tracking. I have a dog as a partner at work instead of the traditional fellow officer. I utilize my partner for several things, least of all tracking. I can't communicate with him like I can with a person, so its hard to know what I did wrong when something goes bad. I want to be the best at the most difficult task.

I have been a canine handler for almost 2 years. I work well with my partner in most situations, however, I have a lot of problems when it comes to tracking the bad guy on the street. I know my partner can track people because we have found one bad guy so far. I know the bad guy gives off scent. I know my partner is able to detect the scent. I know that the training we have received isn't realistic when it is compared to real life situations. The handler needs more training than the dog.

I want to know the intricacies about tracking. Since we don't specialize in tracking it is hard to get the information when there is so much else to do. I want to learn how to give my partner the best advantage possible in locating the suspect. I want to learn the best way to direct my partner from the beginning. I want to learn how to make my own luck when it comes to a bad scenario. I want to learn how to become consistently proficient in the hardest task a canine team is faced with.