Doug Goodman

One of the things that came out of the HRD seminar I attended in November was the desire to spend more time focusing on handler skills.  So with the other senior HRD member on my team, we started adding Tuesday night handler trainings.  I have really liked how these training sessions have progressed because of the impact on the dogs and the handler.

The kinds of skills are things like detailing, which is getting the dog's nose to follow the hand.  This is very useful in vehicle and building searches, but can also be used for small evidence searches when there is not a huge area to cover.  Believe it or not, something as simple as where you stand can affect a dog's behavior.  For example, if you are standing in one spot while the dog is working an area, and you gradually move to your right, your dog will start to move in that direction, too.  So on Tuesday nights we develop some of these skills (and many others).

Another advantage to the Tuesday night trainings has been the opportunity to work in different conditions. See, team trainings are usually weekend training sessions, usually staggered between mornings and afternoons to create the most opportunities for people to come out.  I really like the system, but you can't train in the dark when the sun is out!  Usuall when we did night trainnig, it was a special once- or twice-a-year event, usually held in the summer when it was just too stinking hot to train during the day.  But now the team is training lights out (you are welcome for the bad pun) on a weekly basis.  This has also allowed us to train in more inclemental weathers like rain, fog, and gusting winds, and sometimes like this past Tuesday, we get to train in all of them at once!  That's Texas for you.

A key element to the Tuesday night trainings has been that they are purely voluntary.  These sessions are for handlers who want to work their dogs a little more.  (And who doesn't?  Cadaver dogs are cool!) 

Note:  Create bumper sticker saying "Cadaver dogs are cool!"

There is nothing against anyone who doesn't want to attend.  Whether or not the team did Tuesay night trainings, I recognized the need to work my dog a little more each week, so I was getting everything out of the trainings that I wanted.  I have had to leave early before, other times some people couldn't make it out, but we always have enough people in attendance to train a least four to five dog teams. 

In January, the HRD teams tweaked the Tuesday night training, and we have really reaped the benefits from it.  What we did was make handler trainings complement weekend team trainings by doing the same kind of problems.  On Tuesdays, the problems are not blind, and on the weekends we do the same problem, but blind.  So for example we did a couple weeks of elevated training, where the source is placed up high.  We started at a lower height that our dogs were more comfortabe with (I think 4 feet).  All handlers knew exactly where the scent item was hanging (i.e., not blind).  Then on the weekend, we mimicked the same problem (hanging, 4 feet, always in a new location), but the handlers couldn't know the location of the hanging scent item (i.e., blind).  This has been great for learning the different behaviors provided by a dog in different situations.  It also builds team confidence, which is vital to any working dog team.  The handler has to trust that the dog is doing the job as trained.

Unlike team trainings, there are no flankers and no additional work, so the trainings are always quick and finished.  They usually take one and a half to two hours max from wheels stop to exiting the park.  If your team meets once a week but has several team members who want to pursue Tuesday night trainings, I highly recommend it.

"Black Friday is like the zombie apocalypse.  Either you're one of them, or you're inside hiding, hoping your loved ones haven't been trampled by crazy people."  My wife posted this to her Facebook wall with the request that I come back alive and not undead.  But really, my Black Friday experience wasn't all that bad.

Okay, so I heard that a woman trying to buy an X-Box pepper-sprayed the people around her like she was a wolf defending a recently killed caribou.  And I have heard of people getting mugged for toys/money while out on Black Friday.  But I have been Black Fridaying it for the past 4 to 5 years, and I've just had a different experience.  It seems that instead of thugs and psychotics, I see mostly ordinary soccer moms and dads out looking for presents.  The frantic behavior doesn't seem to kick in until after Black Friday when people realize they have shopping to do and that perfect ImagiNext T-Rex that they really wanted to get their nephew for Christmas is completely sold out in the continental United States and won't be shipping from China for at least another month.  Yeah, that was me five years ago.  I decided to start shopping Black Fridays or get used to looking for alternative gifts.

The crazy part is the before, actually.  That's because on Thursday I sift through a bunch of Christmas lists and compare them to a bunch of flyers and look for the perfect fits.  My relatives who have visited us on Thanksgiving can attest to this erratic behavior, and I freely admit it.  But I gotta strategize.  It's not just about which store to go to, but when will the toy be available? 9pm? 10 pm? midnight? 5am?

Once I have my strategy, it's time for a little nap (usually augmented by turkey and wine).  Then I get in the car, grab a few Throwback Pepsi's (no corn syrup, just glorious sugar), and head to Toys R Us. 

Call of Duty: Toys R Us

The line at TRU was lo-o-o-ong.  It stretched a couple of blocks, and there were probably three to five hundred people in line.  I got there a little early, broke out the cellphone, and started keping tabs on the progress of the final Texas/A&M game.  A store member came around and let us know that Toys R Us would open on time and people would be let in 50 at a time.

I overheard people worrying about lots of things in line.  They worried about how long they would be in line, whether the item would still be on the shelf, and whether or not all this was worth it.  Nobody was worried about the alien invaders who took over the local Toys R Us, killed its crew, then sent out unbelievable Black Friday deals that would lure all the townspeople to the store, where they would stand in line and wait to be let in, 50 at a time, and then the aliens would slaughter everyone as they came in looking for game systems and remote-controlled cars.  Or maybe that was just my overactive imagination hopped up on sugar and caffeine.

An hour later, I was inside and hunting for a couple of sweet deals.  Everybody there was very nice and cordial.  The lines weren't horrendously long, I wasn't killed by aliens, and no zombies tried to eat me (if they tried I would have beheaded them with a nearby Nerf sword).  The only downside was I couldn't get a cart, so my arms were very jello-y (real word) by the time I got to the cashier.  Otherwise, I left TRU having saved $70.

Scariest moment of the night was me walking to the van, Christmas presents in hand, and some guy walking out of the shadows with a big grin on his face.  He wanted me to know "we" (I was wearing my Longhorns shirt) had won the game.  Last minute field goal.  I guess there are some things about this rivalry I will miss, like complete strangers wanting to share a victory in a dark and unlit area.  If I had brought pepper spray, there would have been another case of customer "resource guarding" on Black Friday.

Battlefield:  Best Buy

Best Buy was different.  As soon as I got in line, I could tell the differences.  For one, the crowd was younger.  They also looked like they had been waiting in line a lot longer.  There were lots of people in chairs and huddled together under ponchos, but it hadn't rained in 24 hours, which was weird.  They also looked geekier and more fan-boy.  It made me wonder if George Lucas was going to be at the store.  Or Olivia Wilde. 

Like the TRU line people, the BB line people had their worries, too.  Most of it was Red Bull exageration I think, because the guy on the phone in front of me was calling a friend and described the line as being one thousand to fifteen hundred people long where we stood.  He was probably right if you took away a thousand.  Amateurs...

There was another key difference between the Toys R Us crowd and the Best Buy crowd.  At Best Buy, there were a lot of chain smokers.  At Toys R Us, there was very little cigarette smoke, but somebody was definitely smoking weed.  Now that I think of it, maybe that was why everyone was so cordial and nice at Toys R Us!  Maybe that was why I was thinking of aliens, too...

At Best Buy, there were a couple of issues.  The way Best Buy had their lines set up, I had to enter another line and swim downstream through all the people waiting to purchase something that you needed an orange sheet to purchase.  I left my cart in the aisle.  By the time I got back, one of my purchases had been pilfered.  (Because I don't want to reveal the present to anyone, I will refer to it as "Electric Cow Ears." I couldn't find it back on the rack, so I went to get back in line.  But by then the general line pretty much wrapped all around the store.  There was nobody from Best Buy manning the lines, and so I went to so many lines, it felt like FEMA after a hurricane.  Then a Best Buy person showed up to fix the line problem.  Fortunately, that meant that everybody AFTER me had to go to the back of another line (suckers!) and I could merge with the current one.  I probably saved hours by not having to go to the back of that line.  Of course, there is a rumor that those people are actually still in line, stuck in a kind of purgatory between heaven and hell, err...cashiers and the end of the line. 

On the plus side, right before the cashiers was a row of Electric Cow Ears, so I was able to get the gift at the discounted rate after all.  On the downside, I probably spent three hours at Best Buy and only saved $30.  And there was no George Lucas or Olivia Wilde appearance.  I think that disappointed me the most.

World of Black Friday-Craft

So it wasn't all that bad.  I haven't done a dollar-by-dollar tally of the savings, but I probably saved a couple of hundred dollars by sunrise.  I could have saved more if I had been buying big-ticket items like TVs and iPads instead of Electric Cow Ears. 

If you look beyond the illegal drugs, the scary Longhorn fan, and the long lines of Shoggoth (I couldn't resist inserting a little Lovecraft), it was a very unpredictable and boring Friday night.  Which is the part that affects people the most.  "In a world of instant results" and all that.  People hate standing in line for longer than thirty seconds, even if it means you can save money.  I have a higher tolerance for it, I guess.  Maybe it was all that ultramarathon training I did in my twenties.  I got used to the idea of doing the same something for nine to ten hours, and let's be honest, my speed as an ultramarathoner was probably a little faster than standing in line at Best Buy. 

Will I do it again?  Probably.  Will next year be as crazy as this year?  Probably not.  But there's nothing wrong with standing in line unless aliens are using the local Toys R Us to slaughter townspeople.

My computer takes forever to boot.  I think it has something to do with a. being a PC and b. me not knowing how to set it up better.  The result of the situation is that I have some time to kill while waiting for various beeps and grunts to finish their electric gurgle from my hard drive.  So I was walking around the room and my books caught my eye. 

Man, have I got a weird collection.  Not eclectic or refined.  Just odd.  My top shelf has my college books and some other things.  They make me sound smart.  If I was still single, I would probably show this shelf off to try to impress girls.  The second shelf (from the top) is devoted to childhood awards and toys.  (Does anyone remember what a Battle Beast is?)  The third shelf is apparently where I keep a lot of books that I personally like.  The bottom two shelves are mostly tapes, CDs, assorted manuals, and collections (Tolkien, Sherlock Holmes).

But back to that top shelf.  A closer look reveals (right to left):

Tomas Rivera's ...And the Earth Did Not Devour Him (In English and Spanish!)

Candide (True story - in high school we had to make food based on Candide.  I don't remember what I made, but somebody baked a cake butt.  No bull.  It was a cake made to look like a gluttous maximous.  I think they did a very good job.)

Cliff's Notes for The Faerie Queene and Paradise Lost (I swear I only used them as a resource.  I did actually read those books.  They are among my favorites.)

Canto Al Pueblo (No clue.  It was college.)

The DaVinci Code  (Interestingly, this book is right next to...)

Paradise Lost (err...John Milton's Complete Poems and Major Prose, copyright 1957)

ICS 300 and 400 Training Manuals (I guess in case incident command needs to be set up in my study)

Blood Meridian (Totally badass book)

Dorling Kinderslety Handbooks:  Dogs ("The most acessible recognition guides")

Barron's Australian Cattle Dogs

The History of Farting (There goes my chance of ever looking refined)  (And thanks, hon.  I love this book.  Hilarious!)

A Beautiful Mind

The Canterbury Tales

Jurassic Park

William Wadsworth (Guarded by General Grievous)

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (another favorite)

Asimov's Robot Dreams

Spenser's The Faerie Queene (I.  did not.  read.  the Cliff's Notes!)

Chretien De Troyes' Arthurian Romances

Lawman's Brut

Samuel Taylor Coleridge (Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner RULZ!)

The Best of HP Lovecraft:  Bloodcurdling Tales of Horror and the Macabre (with highlights for "In the Vault," "The Silver Key," "The Colour Out of Space," and "The Thing on the Doorstep")

Hank the Cowdog (still the best detective books ever)

and

Dinosaurs of North America by Helen Roney Sattler, illustrated by Anthony Rao (One of my first great dinosaur books, and one that filled the greatest requirement of pre-teen boys:  jaw-droppingly insane illustrations)

So that's me.  Somewhere between A History of Farting, some embarrassing Cliff's Notes on Paradise Lost, and Dinosaurs of North America, you get this weird writer/cadaver dog handler.  I like it.

Okay, so I kind of ran out of gas on the last book I wrote somewhere in the rewrite phase. I got to the point where I got reviews in from some family members, made changes to the book based on their very good inputs...and then I started wondering if the whole setup is wrong.  For whatever reason, I also was not digging the voice.  So I started a complete rewrite to the novel and lost traction.  I decided I needed/wanted to work on something else.  Which brings me to novel number 3.

This novel is my take on a post-apocalypse.  But instead of being about full-fledged adults dealing with the loss of their society, I decided I wanted to write about teens whose world falls out from under them.  So far, I think it has been a good direction to take.  Some of these teens are becoming more adult while others are still firmly in terra teen-firma.

The first thing to decide before writing any post-apocalypse story is whether or not you reveal what caused the post-apocalypse.  I am thinking of The Road, which only alludes to a nuclear war but does not give any details.  This is the "War of the Worlds" direction (WotW was written with very little full-disclosure moments -- most of the book centered around the war's affect on the primary characters and did not describe, for instance, what was happening in France or what the Prime Minister was doing to stop the Martians). 

Then there is the why and how.  I don't want to get into it too much, but I am an animal lover and a monster lover.  Post-apocalypse or not, these kids need to be fighting some monsters!  So in this one the creatures are monstercized animals.  Dogs, cats, cattle.  I'm sure there is a monstercized goldfish in there somewhere, too.  My question to you, though, is what animal do you find monstrous or that you think would make a good monster?  Feel free to respond in the comments or email me.

I was checking out SARQuest.org, which is a fantastic site, and I happened on some pictures of Mojo working on scents.  I have copied them over here, too.  Go to www.douggoodman.net, and click on Photos (SAR).  Take a look at them and tell me what you think.  Some are funny, and some are great shots of dog behavior.  (See photo comments for what I mean about behavior.)  Besides photos of dogs, you get lots of pictures of me in camo pants.  Now, in my defense, I bought the camo pants when there was a chance the team would be going to Joplin to help with recovery efforts there, so I wasn't thinking fashion sense.  I just needed an extra pair of britches to get dirty.  Cleary, I wasn't thinking ANYTHING about fashion sense.  I have seen other people pull off the whole camo fashion thing.  Not me.  The lesson learned:  Goodman sticks to khakis. 

There are also photos of Rider and Princess.  Sometime soon, I should post some pictures of Mojo when he isn't working (just to prove that he does have down time!)

There are five basic commands all dogs should know:  sit, down, stay, come, and heel.  The better your dog knows these five commands, the more easily the pup can handle the more advanced commands.  Sometimes, though, cadaver dogging and obedience get in the way of each other.

When I first got Mojo, my family lived in an apartment, so taking Moj for walks outside was mandatory.  As a result of all that walking, Mojo is pretty good at the heel command.  He was so good, it got in the way of his HRD training. See, when Moj first started training, he didn't want to lead me to a scent; he wanted to heel at my side.  It took a little work, but after some consistency and a few weeks, he began to work away from me.  (However, from time to time when he gets tired or frustrated, he will still revert to the heel position and want me to lead him around.)

Because of this issue with heel, I didn't train my next too pups, Princess and Ryder, to heel.  I taught them "Walk With Me," which means stay in my general area.  Lately, though, I've gotten the idea in my head to train Ryder and work with Mojo on the heel command.  Despite not heeling for the past 3-5 years, Mojo did a pretty good job staying at my side.  I did one thing wrong, though.  One key thing.  I used my hand to motion for him to stay with me.  As soon as Mojo saw that hand move in front of him, his nose dove down into the ground like it did at HRD training on Saturday.  Whoops!  Don't need Mojo confusing "heel" with "find dead guy!"  I'm going to have to find another way to get his attention.  (Probably slapping my knee to begin with.)

Ryder did much better, though she hated when I worked her on the Sit command.  I could get about 340 degrees behind her when she would spin to face me.  I growled a correction, took her by the scruff of the neck, and repositioned her.  Again, though, I couldn't get past 340 degrees.  This time when I corrected her, she went back down and paws up.  Okay, pup.  We'll have to build towards 360.  She did really well with fetch, though.  Moj, who thinks the only way to keep a game of fetch going is to bark loudly and incessantly until the ball is thrown, didn't fare so well.  He also wanted to play his other favorite game, called "I growl at you until you rip the ball out of my jaws, then I will start barking incessantly at you again."  This is why he couldn't do frisbee competitions.  Okay, not the big reason, but part of it. 

I am going to have to work with the dogs tomorrow on obedience, but this time I need to be mindful not to direct Mojo to cadaver dog when I want him to heel...

Hello.  It has been a while.  The last post was in July, but hopefully the posts should turn up more regularly now.  I am going to do some obedience work with Ryder, and Mojo and I will be attending a cadaver dog seminar in early November.  I am working on a second novel, and I am also building a few short stories as well.

As part of all this, I am dusting off the website.  I cleared out some HTML cobwebs and brushed off the old code.  I changed out the monthly story for the first time in too long.  (Go check it out if you get a chance.  I have Queen Anne's Corpse up.  Since Arkham Tales is now listed as a "dead market," I thought it was time to post the Corpse to my website.  Besides, it will be up in October, and how can you not post a story about corpses in October?) 

I have heard several times writers referring to published novels as not so much being finished projects but being in a state of doneness at the time.  I completely get that.  When posting Queen Anne's Corpse, I had to resist the urge to rewrite.  I changed one word, but that's it, I swear!

A couple of weeks ago, I also re-read about five of my old short stories that never published and sent them off as submissions.  They still sounded good, so I thought "Why not?"  Already, oneof them has been rejected, which oddly enough has a "back to the grind" feel to it.  Good to be back.  Now let's see if any of those rejections can change into acceptances.

Because the last Space Shuttle, Atlantis, just landed, I am up early and watching JSC celebrations on my television.  There was a beauty to Atlantis rolling to a stop in the black of morning with the spotlights behind it.  It made me think of my time working at Mission Control.

Don't get too excited.  I am a tech writer, so I never worked console and I never had to engineer a fix in the middle of Flight or play a role in which my performance had ultimate consequence.  But there is a reproduction room in Mission Control, and it is staffed 24/7 while the Shuttle is flying.  That is where I worked for a couple of weeks in 2000/2001.  (I can't remember if it was STS-101 or STS-102).  Curse my memory!!

I worked the graveyard shift from 10-6 because I was young and that was the only option available.  What I remember most about working at MCC was just how cool it felt, like you were a part of something special, even if it was only in a small way.  Up till that point I had worked offsite in a semi-large nondescript office building covered with windows.  So working Mission Control was my first time to actually go onsite.

To get to work I would drive down Saturn Lane.  It was dark already and there was a rejuvenating breeze in the air.  The kind of wind that makes you feel good even when you want to feel bad.  The breeze drove away Houston's ever-encroaching humidity, and I will always remember just how nice the weather was then.  To get to work you had to pass the giant Saturn V rocket in Rocket Park.  That thing is enormous.  Because it is now covered up by a building, you don't get a feel for the proportion and size of the rocket, but it is immensely huge.  The building barely covers it.  Driving past the Saturn V every day (err...night)  was a visual reminder of the kind of work that was being done.

But it got cooler.  Working in the repro room you were responsible for handling all copy requests, but you also had to deliver a copy of the daily mission update to everybody working in the building.  This was done around 5 am usually and was always exciting because you got to enter the Flight Control Room and see all the important people working at the consoles, which had interesting names like CAPCOM and FIDO and THOR.  You also dropped off materials at the MERs, which were the rooms full of engineering teams that backed up every person on console.  The MERs had long tables full of every kind of food imaginable, so it looked kind of like a celebrity rider list.  (Though I would wager the engineers worked harder than some of those entertainers.)

Best part had to be visiting the old Apollo room.  You get a real sense of history walking around that room with all the green consoles and the vaccuum tubes.  That is where I went on my breaks, just to sit there and enjoy it for what it was. 

I only worked Mission Control for a couple of weeks, and after that I went on to work for the Cockpit Avionics Upgrade, the Integrated Problem Reporting and Corrective Action team, and now I am in Shuttle Archives.  I have visited or worked in many more buildings and seen many of the very cool and interesting things at JSC, but nothing has compared to the couple of weeks I worked at MCC. 

I bought a couple of patches once of flights that I associate myself with.  I bought an STS-99 patch because I worked on some of the Shuttle Topography documents.  I also have a 102 and 101 patch.  One of them I have because I edited a book that flew up in space with my name in it.  (I like to make the bad joke that I have never flown in space, but "Doug Goodman" has been to space and orbitted the Earth about a hundred times.)  The other is for my brief visit in Mission Control.  Hindsight being 20/20, I should have written down on them which is which...

Now Atlantis has landed, and the word I hear is "bittersweet," and that is a good word to use.  I am thankful for the memories I have with the Shuttle program, but I am also waiting and wondering when will we go back up, and to where?

For the first time, I took my family on an extended camping trip.  We spent three days and nights tenting in Mueller State Park outside of beautiful Colorado Springs.  Camping in Colorado Springs is a little different from camping in East Texas.  For starters, you can camp in Colorado Springs in the summer.  In East Texas you don't camp.  You just kind of sit around and sweat until the sun goes down.  There are a few other differences.  East Texas has most snakes that can kill you with a single bite:  rattlesnakes, water mocassins, copperheads, coral snakes, etc.  Colorado Srings has garden snakes.  To compensate for this lack in reptilian killing machines, Colorado has maintained its lion and bear population. 

Camping in Mueller, you are warned half a dozen times about the bears.  When to look for them, what to do if you see one, how not to startle one.  Sounds very quaint, like if you meet a bear it is likely to be sticking its paw in a tree while it digs for honey.  If you are lucky, it might even offer you some.  Then again, there are all the warnings:  Don't keep food in your tent.  Don't keep trash laying around the campsite.  If you cook in one pair of clothes, sleep in a different pair.  These warnings come on a sheet decorated with a bear who has sharp claws.  So gone is Mr. Honeybear.  Now we have Mr. I'm Gonna Eat Ya In Your Sleep Bear, who probably has anger management issues.

I don't worry about bears in Colorado any more than I worry about sharks in the Gulf.  Sure, they are out there, but that doesn't mean you're going to be some animal's dinner.  Still, there is a reason those instructions exist.  I figure it is mostly to keep bears from ever coming into Mueller.  I have watched television shows about bear relocations and things.  Somebody sees a bear somewhere, calls a bear expert (possibly with bear dogs) who tranqulize the bear and relocate it to another part of the Rockies.  Just to feel safe - kind of like keeping a lucky rabbit's foot with me - I kept a little 1-inch knife with me at all times.

You see where this is going, right?

We survived the first night without any bear encounters.  After cooking, cleaning, getting dressed, and dumping our trash in the bear-proof dumpster, we drove out to Pike's Peak.  My wife and children spent most of the drive up and down Pike's Peak clinging to the seats and praying that I did not send the van careening off the edge of the mountain with a bellow and a holler a la Goofy.  I returned them safely to a lower altitude, for which they bought me an "I Drove Up Pike's Peak" patch.  We returned to camp, ate, and went to sleep.  I was not as diligent the second night as I was the first.  I slept in the same clothes I was wearing when I cooked dinner. 

I slept very well that night, which we survived by not being mauled by a bear.  So the next day we went on a train ride (my son LOVES trains).  On the way to the train, my daughter informs me that she saw an elk on the side of the road about a mile back.  I got frustrated with her.  I had hoped to see an elk on our vacation, so I told her (probably too angrily) that she should tell us when she sees something, not a mile farther down the road.  We drive on.

Suddenly from the back of the van, my daughter shouts one word:  "BEAR!!!!"  But it is too late.  We rounded a bend and didn't see it.  What?  Are you kidding me?  I came all the way to Colorado, and I want to see the honey bear!  So I said "to hell with this," and I turned the car around.

And we saw the bear, right where my daughter said it would be:  on the farside of the rocks, ambling down the mountain side.  I didn't pull over and get a picture, and I didn't have time to study the animal.  But my first reaction was akin to most father's, I think.  There was no way that litle 1-inch blade of mine was going to do ANYTHING to protect me and my family from that bear.  I might as well be bringing a pop-gun to a pistol fight.  And "that bear," Mr. Honey Bear, had paws like a left tackle.  And as he moved down the mountain, giant muscles rippled in his shoulders.  This thing wasn't like the sun bears in the Houston Zoo.  This black bear looked like it could take care of a lot of business if it wanted to.

So guess what?  That final night, I took a few extra precautions.  Made a trip to the bear-proof dumpster before I went to bed (and wondered if my next tent should be made of the same stuff bear-proof dumpsters are made of).  Wore clean clothes to bed that night.  I remember I didn't get much sleep, either.  But I did keep that little useless knife with me.  It is amazing the things we do to feel better.  I guess what is important is not whether they can stop a black bear in its tracks (which in my mind had grown to the size of Kodiak), but rather whether or not it makes us feel safer. 

I can't wait to do some more camping in Colorado.

Some friends who attended the NASAR conference told me about chicken training, which they learned about at the conference.  (I don't know if this is the video they saw.)  The idea is to learn to train a dog by first learning to train a chicken.  I am not fond enough of chickens to ever want to teach them to do anything except jump into my KFC.  Speaking of which, pay attention 2:45 into the video.  I think there is additional motivation being used...

If you can train a chicken, you can train a dog.  Reminds me of one of my favorite lines from Dodgeball: