NATURE’s Underdogs takes us into the lives of two troubled canines and the trainers who helped them reach their full potential as the intelligent, able working dogs they were bred to be. NATURE asked the film’s associate producer, Aidan Woodward, to give us a behind-the-scenes look at the making of the production.

How did you go about choosing the dogs and the trainers that were featured in Underdogs?

The selection process was tedious. When making any program, you have to weigh many factors, such as a person’s personality, character, and their ability to express him or herself, as well as their genuine skills and potential for success. In the case of choosing dogs for the show, those factors are more difficult to determine because the candidates cannot speak.

Initially, the advice of behavioral experts, historians, and biologists helped to identify the breeds of dog that would be visually interesting and comparably different to one another. Once we had narrowed down this breed “wish list,” we started the time-consuming work. Two months of persistent e-mails, [phone]calls, and visits to every dog shelter in the U.K. and bloodhound shelter in the Northeastern U.S. rewarded us with about 10 canine candidates. These were further narrowed down according to their personal story, desperation of their situation, and [our] overall impression [after] having met the animal. Herbie, the beardie, and Holly, the bloodhound, had sad stories of abandonment and both were facing an unknown future with no likely sponsors in sight.

The crew films while Holly tracks her target.

Finding the trainers was easier. Once we had located our potential dogs, we followed a logical trail to the doors of as many breed-specific trainers as possible. Availability was a high priority on our list because the undertaking we were hoping to film was not a part-time commitment. Ten candidates were swiftly narrowed to two. Barbara Sykes (collie trainer) and Larry Allen (bloodhound trainer) have very impressive credentials as well as being caring, committed, responsible, fun-loving individuals whose knowledge of their chosen breed is second to none. We were exceptionally lucky to have found these two inspiring people.

Was it difficult to witness so many dogs in need?

It was difficult visiting the dog shelters because often we were led into the canine equivalent of Death Row. Cage after cage contained a dog with a heartbreaking tale of neglect and abuse. Leaving them behind was hard, and I have nothing but admiration for the people who work in such emotionally challenging places that make every effort to provide a bit of love, care, and attention wherever possible to such dogs in need.

What was a typical shooting day like?

Making any film requires time. When making an observational film, the time factor is doubled. On any given day, we tried to start filming when the trainer and dog woke up and finish when the dog went to bed. We always listened to the advice of the trainer and based our filming on their predictions of what would happen during a particular period of training. My memories of filming Herbie and Barbara are of being on the windy moors in the north of England. Herbie raced after sheep in a circle around us. The filming was contained in one field, which meant we could try to predict what he might do and where he might go. After a few hours, we would retreat to the cozy kitchen where Barbara would feed us bacon sandwiches and tell us how she intended to encourage Herbie to improve.

My memories of Holly and Larry always make me laugh. Filming would be a smooth process until Holly caught the scent she was supposed to be tracking. Ten times out of 10, she would drag Larry off into the undergrowth while we tripped over our equipment in an effort to keep up with her. It took weeks of practice before we finally were able to keep up with the dynamic duo as they raced through fields, trees, rivers, and parking lots.

Did the stories evolve the way you hoped they would?

I can honestly say that the overall structure of how the program turned out was quite close to our guesses before filming. Training times between breeds to achieve completely different tasks vary greatly. We knew there would be ups and downs — in fact, we hoped for as many difficult and challenging scenes as possible to make the journey our goal rather than the destination. We didn’t mind if the dogs did not fully succeed in their respective tests at the end of our filming because we knew that [they] had homes for life.

But I must say, I was amazed at how well Holly the bloodhound took to her training. Watching the look on the faces of the Massachusetts State Police when she ripped their test course apart was fantastic. We felt like proud parents!

In the film, we follow Herbie and Holly for 12 weeks. How did you decide on that time frame? Were there any concerns that it wouldn’t be enough time to see a marked difference in the dog’s behavior?

The time frame was determined by two factors — the trainers themselves and the budget for filming. The average novice bloodhound can achieve a certain level of competence after eight to 12 weeks. A novice beardie, however, requires years of attention. Working with sheep or tracking a scent are skills that require completely different training approaches and, therefore, should not be judged in parallel on achievements made during a set timescale. Barbara’s success with Herbie was phenomenal considering she only had 12 weeks to turn a sheep muncher into a well-behaved farm dog. The only reason he underachieved at the final test was because he simply wasn’t ready for such a huge change in variables — new sheep, new people, and new environment thrown at him all at once.

How did the dogs react to the camera and crew?

We knew the crew for this show had to be small. We didn’t want to spook the dogs by having an army of people fussy about them. For this reason, we multi-tasked. I acted as associate producer and sound recordist, while Karen Walsh operated the camera and directed. The trainers were comfortable being shadowed — [after] a day or two — at least that’s what they told us.

[Since] so many new variables were being presented to the dogs in their new home environments, we figured two more people would make little difference. Sure enough, the dogs treated us as familiar friends. They knew our scent and behaved as normally as could be expected.

We often worried that our filming might cause the dogs to lose concentration and want to play instead of work at the vital moment. During Holly’s final test, we ran ahead of her in order to film her entering a cornfield where the trail had been set. Following the scent perfectly, Holly ran along the side of the field toward us. We were terrified that she might overshoot the entry point because she wanted to say hello to us. Nonetheless, we had to carry on filming. For a few unbearable seconds, she stopped in her tracks, wagged her tail at us, and then charged off into the cornfield at the exact entry point.

Did anything happen off camera that you wish you’d caught on film?

Our main worry with the filming process was a question of being with the right dog at the right time. We wanted to film their “eureka” moments of change rather than read about what we’d missed in the journal [that each trainer kept.] At one stage, Larry told us he tried to do a routine clip of Holly’s nails and she practically tried to bite his arm off. We were upset to have missed that scene, so we asked him to tell us what happened in an interview, but it just wasn’t the same.

Did you find that the dogs could distinguish between work and play? How did the trainers handle that?

My impression is that dogs do not know they are working. They are following instinctive behavior passed down in their DNA. Trainers harness this behavior and refine it in order to achieve the desired end. Much of the training process exploits the play drive in the dog. As a result, you could say that play and work mean the same thing to a dog.

I would qualify this, however, by mentioning that dogs can pick up on the stress and adrenalin levels of their trainers. Larry would often say that his bloodhounds know if they are doing a practice scent trail or a real manhunt because they can feel the tension from the handler traveling down the lead itself. He often observed that his dogs would be pumped up for a real manhunt in a way that wouldn’t be so apparent during training sessions. Larry tries to help his dogs focus on work by using the exact same set-up rituals and vocal commands every single time he wants them to follow a scent. He buckles up the dog, gives it the scent in a bag, and then shouts, “Get to work!” From these repeated actions, the dog understands that scent trailing is the task at hand.

Likewise, the stress in body movement, decision making, and in the voice of a sheepdog trainer has a great effect on the dog’s behavior. But this is often too subtle for the layman to notice. Barbara would say that any self-respecting sheepdog just doesn’t want to play with a ball. They are so motivated by rounding up sheep that any other activity is pointless in comparison.

Can you give us an update on the latest successes of Holly and Herbie?

Herbie is fitting in very well to life on the farm. Barbara uses him to help teach novice trainers how to work with sheep for the first time. Because he is such a handsome beardie, Herbie is always popular with her clients.

Holly lives with her new handler, Sgt. Bruce Hirons, in Massachusetts. She has a little terrier dog as a brother at home, and we are waiting to hear about her first manhunt success.

Has the project made any lasting impact on you?

Having watched experts in action, I realize that no dog is bad. It is always the inexperienced, disrespectful, often over indulgent human owner that creates a dog with emotional and psychological baggage. Dogs become confused, insecure, and wayward when our behavior is inconsistent. We often ignore a dog’s action one day then tell the dog off for doing the same thing another day. No wonder people complain that their dog doesn’t know how to behave! Dogs need to be understood as dogs, not humans. At times of training, the experts know how to treat a dog as if it is a dependent member of the pack. As a consequence, the dog clearly understands its place and feels secure.

Do you have a dog?

I don’t have a dog because my work takes me abroad for long periods. But when I finally do get one, it might just be a bloodhound.

Holly and Herbie were renegade youths. Troubled and defiant, they were shuttled from home to home throughout their young lives; no family could manage their unruly conduct. But finally, each found someone who saw that beneath their mischievous veneers were two highly intelligent and gifted animals.

Holly, an 85-pound bloodhound, chewed everything in sight and by the time she was 10 months old, had been removed from six different homes. She was languishing in a shelter, with her days numbered, until professional dog trainer Larry Allen intervened. Having trained countless bloodhounds for law enforcement agencies across the United States, Allen sets out to help Holly harness her natural abilities as a tracker in the hope that one day she would become a competent police dog.

Herbie, a two-year-old bearded collie, couldn’t rein in his impish personality or his penchant for attacking livestock. His errant ways had put him at risk of being shot by a local farmer. Fortunately, sheepdog trainer Barbara Sykes sensed Herbie was more than just a marauder. In her gentle yet firm manner, she coaches him hoping to hone his skills to herd rather than bite sheep on her working farm in England.

Beginning with the initial meeting between dog and trainer, viewers follow Sykes and Allen as they apply their professional skills to transform these misfit mutts into the noble working dogs they were bred to be. As their stories unfold, we witness the powerful bond that develops between trainer and pupil.

Celebrate the beauty of a second chance with these remarkable and resilient Underdogs.

To order a copy of Underdogs, visit the NATURE Shop.

Online content for Underdogs was originally posted January 2006.

Holly is one of the best and brightest detectives on the Massachusetts State Police Force. She is an expert in her ability to assemble clues while tracking missing persons or hunting down criminals. How did she get to be so good at her job? That’s easy — she works like a dog.

As we learn in NATURE’s Underdogs, Holly is a bloodhound once slated for the death chamber. In her youth, she was so destructive that no family could manage her as a pet. Passed from home to home six times before her first birthday, she had little prospect of making it to adolescence. But then, someone entered her life who sensed that behind Holly’s troubled eyes was an animal with phenomenal natural abilities.

For the past 25 years, Larry Allen, a member of Barbour County Tactical Search and Recovery Teams in West Virginia, has been training bloodhounds for law enforcement agencies across the country. Rescuing problem dogs like Holly, he works them through their behavioral issues so that they may achieve their full potential as “gainfully employed” trackers. But Allen insists that training is a relatively small part of what makes these dogs so good at what they do. “The working ability of a bloodhound is 75 percent nature and 25 percent nurture,” he says. And the nature part of the equation resides in the animal’s exquisitely designed nose.

Holly now serves as an olfactory sleuth with the K-9 corps of the Massachusetts State Police.

Often called a nose with a dog attached, the bloodhound is so adept at scent tracking its trailing results is admissible evidence in a court of law. Its outstanding ability to read terrain with its nose is primarily due to a large, ultrasensitive set of scent membranes that allows the dog to distinguish smells at least a thousand times better than humans.

Researchers have estimated that a bloodhound’s nose consists of approximately 230 million olfactory cells, or “scent receptors” — 40 times the number in humans. Whereas our olfactory center is about the size of a postage stamp, a dog’s can be as large as a handkerchief — according to Allen, it is among the largest in canines. “The physical size of their olfactory area far exceeds most other working scent dogs,” he says. “The larger capacity combined with the desire to work makes them a very good tool.”

When a bloodhound sniffs a scent article (a piece of clothing or item touched only by the subject), air rushes through its nasal cavity and chemical vapors — or odors — lodge in the mucus and bombard the dog’s scent receptors. Chemical signals are then sent to the olfactory bulb, the part of the brain that analyzes smells, and an “odor image” is created. For the dog, this image is far more detailed than a photograph is for a human. Using the odor image as a reference, the bloodhound is able to locate a subject’s trail, which is made up of a chemical cocktail of scents including breath, sweat vapor, and skin rafts. Once the bloodhound identifies the trail, it will not divert its attention despite being assailed by a multitude of other odors. Only when the dog finds the source of the scent or reaches the end of the trail will it relent. So potent is the drive to track, bloodhounds have been known to stick to a trail for more than 130 miles.

A bloodhound’s outward appearance also adds to its tracking ability. Loose, wrinkled skin around the face helps trap scent particles and long, drooping ears that drag on the ground collect odors and sweep them into the nostril area. The dog’s long neck and muscular shoulders, which slope into its strong back, allow it to track close to the ground for miles on end.

For the past two centuries, these natural-born detectives have proven legendary in their role in law enforcement. One of the greatest sleuths in canine history was a Kentucky bloodhound called Nick Carter. His dogged persistence led to the capture and conviction of more than 600 criminals throughout his illustrious career.

Despite the technological advances of our current age, many experts agree that these canines are a greater asset to a police force than some of the best high-tech surveillance equipment. Their extraordinary ability to discern a cold trail has sent them on fruitful missions, following tracks over 300 hours old.

But there’s more to becoming a good police dog than simply an acute sense of smell. The dog must also have a predisposition to working with a handler, be eager to please, and have a strong play drive. “The bloodhound’s whole biological makeup enables it to track like no other dog. Such skills are gifts of nature,” says Aidan Woodward, the associate producer of Underdogs. “However, without the disciplined and focused assistance of the dedicated trainer, a novice bloodhound may not reach anywhere near the potential it could.”

Allen was able to provide the gentle discipline that Holly needed, though he initially had his doubts. “The first time I saw Holly, all I could think was, how am I going to make this puppy into a working dog in 12 weeks?” he recounts. “Little did I know that she would develop a love for the game within two weeks and go on to be one of the best trainees I have ever had. The more that I worked with her, the more solid she became and the more she became my partner.”

After 12 short weeks of training, Holly had polished her natural skills as a tracking dog and was ready to begin her new career with the Massachusetts State Police. “Parting with Holly was very difficult,” Allen admits. “Compare it to having your child get married and move to the other side of the world the next day.”

But he is thoroughly proud of all she’s accomplished. “The best part of working as a trainer with the dogs from rescue is watching them develop skills and confidence in themselves,” offers Allen. “The ultimate reward is having a dog that you trained be involved in saving a person’s life or tracking down a violent criminal.”

As for Holly, she has been given a second chance and a fresh new start in life. What could be more rewarding than that?

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American Bloodhound Club
http://www.bloodhounds.org/
Find out more about one of the oldest, finest, and most noble breed of scent-tracking dogs.

American Kennel Club (AKC)
http://www.akc.org/
Check out all the dog breeds officially recognized by the AKC, as well as information on how to register your dog, obtain pedigrees, and enroll in dog shows.

American Working Dog Federation
http://www.awdf.net
Learn about an organization dedicated to preserving and protecting the heritage of America’s working dogs.

Bearded Collie Club of America
http://beardie.net/bcca/
Devoted to one of the world’s most beloved herding dogs, this site is all about the beardie.

Barbour County Tactical Search and Recovery Teams, Inc.
http://www.bctsrt.com/
Learn about the organization for which bloodhound trainer Larry Allen volunteers.

Dog Breed Info Center
http://www.dogbreedinfo.com/
Search for information on puppies, dogs, and breeders, as well as tips on dog behavior, care, and training.

Mainline Border Collie Centre
http://www.bordercollies.co.uk
Learn more about trainer, Barbara Sykes’ work with sheepdogs and plan a visit to her working farm in Yorkshire, England.

North American Police Dogs
http://www.napwda.com/
Get to know the canines dubbed “North America’s Finest.”

North Shore Animal League America
http://www.nsalamerica.org/
Rescue an animal or find out how you can help find loving homes for them.

Petfinder
http://www.petfinder.com/
Search for adoptable pets, locate shelters and rescue groups, browse a resource library, or sign up to volunteer in your local area through this comprehensive Web site.

Stoneleigh Park Town and Country Festival
http://www.stoneleighfestival.co.uk/
Enjoy three days of events, including the “Top Dog” competition at one of Britain’s greatest summer festivals.

Broughton Hall
http://www.broughtonhall.co.uk
Herbie and Barbara Sykes competed in a sheep dog trial at this Yorkshire estate.

Working Dogs Cyberzine
http://www.workingdogs.com/
Read news and articles about working dogs on this international Web-based magazine.

Related Episodes of NATURE:

NATURE: Extraordinary Dogs
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/dogs/
Meet more working dogs, learn about amazing canine companions, and discover a training program for service dogs.

Books:

American Kennel Club Staff. The Complete Dog Book. 19th ed. New York: Howell Book House, 1998.

American Rescue Dog Association. Search and Rescue Dogs: Training the K-9 Hero. Howell Book House, 2002.

Bulanda, Susan. Ready! The Training of the Search and Rescue Dog. Doral Publishing, 1994.

Choron, Sandra and Harry Choron. Planet Dog: A Doglopedia. Houghton Mifflin, 2005.

Coren, Stanley. How to Speak Dog: Mastering the Art of Dog-Human Communication. Simon & Schuster Free Press, 2001.

Longton, Thomas and Barbara Sykes. Training the Sheep Dog. UK: Crowood Press, 2003.

Mehus-Roe, Kristin. Working Dogs: True Stories of Dogs and their Handlers. Bow Tie Press, 2003.

Milleville, Lynnette R. Hear My Voice: An Old World Apporach to Training Herding Dogs Today. Doral Publishing, 2004.

Palika, Liz. Save that Dog: Everything You Need to Know about Adopting a Purebred Rescue Dog. Macmillan, 1997.

Sykes, Barbara. Understanding and Handling Dog Aggression. UK: Crowood Press, 2001.

Sykes, Barbara. Understanding Border Collies. UK: Crowood Press, 1999.

Tweedie, Jan. On the Trail!: A Practical Guide to the Working Bloodhound and Other Search and Rescue Dogs. Alpine Publications, 1998.

Weisbord, Merrily and Kim Kachanoff. Dogs with Jobs: Working Dogs around the World. Pocket Books, 2000.