This article will present one method of teaching the passive indication of evidence based on motivational techniques such as those taught by Gottfried Dildei. This is a method which I developed myself based on his teachings, those of Sheila Booth and other motivational trainers. I firmly believe in training the last behavior in a chain of events first.
Motivational training is based on rewards.
In training for evidence search, the dog is rewarded for indicating the article. If the dog learns to enjoy indicating because of the rewards associated with it, teaching him to search for the article is simply a matter of exposing him to progressively more difficult searching conditions. In contrast, traditional compulsive methods have the handler manipulate the dog and eventually the dog does the behavior to avoid corrections, or, if the techniques are mixed, possibly to avoid a correction and earn a reward. Dogs learn quickest and best by discovering how to earn their rewards without manipulation because manipulation causes them to become dependent on the prompts and cues of the manipulation process. To finish the training process, cues which accompany manipulation like the leash, correction collar, and hand and body movements have to be removed, adding confusion to the learning process.