Running the shell game

For the shell game we employ all six blinds set up on the field. In addition, we use a seventh blind in which to hide the dog. We put it there when we do not want it to see what happens on the field. In the beginning, however, we use only blinds 1 and 2.

We allow the dog to watch the agitator run, yelling and agitating, into blind 1. Then the handler hides the animal behind the seventh blind for about thirty seconds. While the dog’s view is obstructed, the decoy moves quietly from blind 1 to blind 2.

The blind search is a complicated skill. The dog must travel from one side of the field to the other, crossing the handler’s path and looping around six blinds in succession, beginning with either the first one on the left or the first one on the right, according to the judge’s instructions.

The handler brings his dog back out onto the field and sends it to blind 1 with a sweeping arm signal and the command “Search!” The animal runs out eagerly at the blind because it remembers seeing the agitator there half a minute earlier. The dog is therefore quite astonished to find it empty. During its moment of confusion, the handler calls it back and sends it to blind 2, where the dog finds the decoy, barks at him a few times and is then allowed to bite him.

Next time, of course, the dog will be absolutely convinced that the agitator is hiding in blind 2, because that is where it last found him. So, while the dog is hidden behind the seventh blind, we have the helper move stealthily back over to blind 1.

The handler brings his dog out and sends it to blind 2. The animal goes there willingly and finds nothing. The handler then calls it back and sends it to blind 1, where it finds the helper and gets to bite.

Eventually the dog’s expectation of finding in each of the two blinds will be about equal, and this is precisely the principle of the shell game–that by keeping the dog’s anticipation of finding an agitator in each blind equal for first two, then four, then all six of the blinds, we cause it to be equally willing to go to any of them. The dog does not prefer one to another, because it believes its chances are the same in each one.

As the shell game progresses, the dog also becomes increasingly mystified and distrustful of its own conclusions about where the agitator is hiding. It begins to rely unquestioningly on the handler to tell it where to go to find the decoy.

Accordingly, the dog must have no idea, when it begins a blind search, if it will find the agitator in blind 1, or 5 or 3. Consequently, it has no reason to disobey its handler. The dog does not prefer to run to blind 5 when the handler commands it to go to blind 1 because, as far as it knows, blind 5 is no more likely to be “hot” than blind 1. Since no one blind offers a greater chance of a find than another, it will go to each one the handler sends it to, all six in order, until it discovers the helper.

The result of this process of juggling the animal’s expectations will be a scorchingly fast blind search, and without the use of force. However, there still remains one difficulty.

Forcing the send

In a Schutzhund II and III trial, the agitator is always found in the sixth and last blind. Consequently, after we show our dog in just a few competitions all our meticulous work on the shell game will be absolutely undone. The dog will quickly learn that in trial (a context that it easily learns to recognize) its chances of finding the decoy in all of the blinds are far from equal. It will see no point in visiting blinds 1 through 5, when it knows perfectly well that the agitator is hiding in blind 6. Now the dog has good reason to disobey its handler. There is only one remedy–force.

We go back to using just blinds 1 and 2. We make no attempt to fool the dog about which blind the decoy hides in. We let it see exactly where the decoy goes.

Then the handler forces the dog to go to the other blind anyway. This is much easier to do if the handler walks the animal up very close to the empty blind before sending it. Anyway, it is easy enough to accomplish because with the shell game we have already taught the dog the skill of going out to an indicated blind and searching it. Now it is just a matter of making it do it. The instant the dog rounds the empty blind, the handler praises it enthusiastically and sends it across to the other blind where the agitator is hiding.

The concept that, in order to get its bite, the dog must first run away from the helper is a difficult one for the dog. It must come to realize that the empty blind is an intermediate goal, that it represents the bite, and the faster the animal gets to it, the faster it will get back to the decoy in the “hot” blind.

Carefully, one step at a time, the handler forces the dog to search one empty blind, then two, then three, and so on, always rewarding it with a bite as soon as it completes the search. Eventually the animal will run all six blinds on command, even though the agitator stands in full view outside the sixth one.