Shank Offs

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Head shakes or “shake offs” is an action used often by all dogs.  However it is a wonderful tool to help you read your dog and understand what he is thinking.  There are multiple reason a dog shakes his head. First and most common would be clearing an area of his head.  This may be is eyes in the morning when getting up.  Clearing his ears should there be an issue in that area.  To clear his noise.  There are many other reason for the shake off however the clearing of the nose is the area I want to focus on in this case.

The dog olfactory system can easily get overwhelmed with odor and scent as it flows into the dog’s nose. This can happen in say a case of getting sprayed by a skunk.   It can also happen when the dog is focused on one particular scent such as our missing person.  Over a course of time other odors get in the dog’s nostrils and the dog gets to much to discern.  The one odor he is trying to follow cannot accurately get located.  This is a place where a good shake off helps him out.  On other accessions a working dog may come across a strong scent of the odor he is following.  At that point he make do a shank off and precede forward with a great deal of interest.  With this in mind when reading my dog I have categorized this as a positive shank off or a negative shake off.  The difference is in the dog’s actions immediately after.  A shank of with a turn back or movement to one side or another would be more of a negative shake off suggesting the scent is not in that area and we as a team should work in another direction.  A shank off that the dog moves forward with some purpose and motivation would be my positive shank off and I can feel I am on the track or at least in scent of our target person we are searching for.   As you are working your dog keep these differences in mind as they can assist you in understanding exactly what your dog is trying to tell you.

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Happy hunting and Be Relentless!