I will soon be starting scent work for all my dogs. Of all my little doberman Helga has very high search stamina. If I throw the ball in tall grass or hide the ball, she will smell the ball out even if it takes 10 minutes.

I want to start her off properly on scent work. Need to know some suggestions on good books DVDs that teach scent work from the basics.Sort of like our leerburg DVDs.

1) teaching a dog the concept of searching 2) teaching a dog to match scent (finding a scent that is the same as a sample given to the dog) 3) Teach the dog to scent/indicate on command. etc.

maybe I am not even asking for the right things. The bottom line is I know Zero about scent work. I want to start from a strong foundation even if it takes time.

I need books/DVDs that can help me self learn as there are no clubs or organizations where I live.

Please suggest.

Ram

So just to clarify you want to teach scent discrimination on articles - not tracking or airscent?

There is a leerburg narcotics detection dvd that might be helpful - it's one of the older ones but still good.

no not tracking. I live in an urban area where there is no lawn or fields. If there is any book on urbantracking on concrete / bitumen then yes I would be interested.

Also I am a civilian, I will not have access to norcotics etc even for training purpose.

mainly I want to teach AKC style scent discrimination and scent matching(not just handler scent. I want to give other scent and say go find the article with the same scent.

What I meant by the dvd was that narco detection is taught pretty much the same as any other type of scentwork.

Mary Ray did a series of dvds about teaching obedience including kc style cloth discrimination. They're quite expensive but pretty good.

It is also possible to teach tracking on hard surfaces - leerburg has a dvd about it but i'm not sure that it's from beginners or follows on from another tracking dvd.

A very neat way to train urban tracking is the Hydration Intensified Tracking Training, or HITT, method. It is very different method of training that uses water to to intensify the odor of the track (moisture is a big deal in tracking) and over time you allow the water/track to dry more and more until the dog is tracking dry. It is very unusual and works well for some dogs. Here is a link: Urban Tracking

If you are looking to do scent detection (as opposed to scent discrimination, two different things...) then the best in the industry is Randy Hare and his On Target method. It is a very smart way to train, that allows the dog to understand what it is they are searching for and does not ever teach them to target an incorrect scent.

Traditional training for odor detection calls for impregnating a reward item (ball, rag, tug, PVC pipe...) with the target odor and the dog is really looking for the reward; the target odor is just there. Eventually the dog correlates the target scent with the reward, and a'la Pavlov's bell, the dog hits on the target odor. Randy's method specifically teaches the dog to hit on the target odor to GET the reward, and that hitting on anything else, even the reward its self will never get the reward. Different and awesome! Ed even sells boxes that work for the system, and they are not hard to make if one is even half way proficient with a saw.

While Randy Hare specifically trains for dope, one could (and MANY in the detection industry do) use it for training to indicate on ANYTHING. Some ideas are human remains, bed bugs, termites, gas leaks, explosives, toxic mold and those are all scents where dogs are actively employed world wide (and there are more, even dogs that find cell phones in the prison system!). One could also just do it for fun and using uncommon scents, like lavender or lemon extract. Applying the scent to an object and hiding it in different places just to get the dog looking. There is a new sport in the USA called K9 Nose work that uses anise, clove and birch scents and has different levels of training (I, II, III) that a dog can attain.

I want to do both Scent discrimination and detection. Scent discrimination would be part of the obedience . I think at some pointthe dog is expected to bring back the article handled by the handler/judge.

Detection would be so cool to do. I think my puppy has a good chance because she is nuts for the tennis ball. She will even play with the other dogs while still holding on to the ball. Yesterday she was humping Kaiser with the ball in her mouth.


I checked out some of his videos. It is so cool. There are bucket full of balls thrown at the dog and yet the dog wants to go find the dope.