Dear Leerburgers,

I need some serious help as I have no idea about training this behaviour.

I am taking Kaiser and Bommi for Class C6 - CLASS C. That is the last test. My babies can do every thing mentioned in that except for what is called as scent discrimination. But the scent the dog has to pick is the judge's scent. The short version of the test is

1) Judge takes two fresh Handkerchiefs and wipes his hands and face with both of them simultaneously and places one in the ring and gives one to me. There are also other kerchiefs in the ring that have scents from other individuals.


2) I need to make my dog take the scent from the kerchief that was handed to me and go pick the kerchief with the same scent as the one I showed the dog.

3) A kerchief with my scent will not be in the ring. So that is good news. But there will be other kerchiefs with other scents.


It is almost like showing a photo to some one and saying " go pick out the person from a line up whose photo you just saw".

My dogs are imprinted on my scent so they pick out an object with my scent with ease.

Now the problem is

The dog has to REMEMBER the scent it just took. Ofcourse I cannot train for the judge's scent because I do not know who the judge will be.


Does AKC have some thing like this? How do you train a dog to do this. Please Please help.


This is the highest class in obedience and not many dogs make it. My babies can do all the stuff listed in C6-CLASS C (see link at bottom) except for this.

I am going to keep bugging you guys till you can help me, so save yourself the pain and help me now

 Quote:

Scent discrimination. Judge's scent on piece of marked cloth, Neutral and decoy cloth to be provided by the show executive. The judge shall not place his cloth in the ring himself, but it shall be placed by a steward. A seperate similar piece to be used for each dog and the total number of seperate pieces of cloth from which the dog shall discriminate shall not exceed ten. If a dog fetches or found a wrong article this must be replaced by a fresh article. At Open air shows all scent cloths must be adequately weighted to prevent them being blown about. The method of scent shall be at the handlers’ discretion but shall not require the judge to place his hand on or lean towards the dog. A separate similar piece of cloth approximately 6"x 6" but not more than 10x10 shall be available to be used for giving each dog the scent. Judges should use a scent decoy or decoys. 50 Points

Kennel Club of India Obedience Rules.

i used to scent games with one of my dogs where i would take an item, lets say a stapler for arguments sake. with gloves on i would rub a clean cloth or tissue on it to gather some scent. the cloth would immediately go into a ziploc bag and marinate for a little while. in the meantime i would hide the stapler in another room, as we got better i would ask someone else to hide it. when ready i would have the dog smell the inside of the bag with the cloth in it then tell him to find.

i hope this is helpful.

Pat , thanks for your kind reply. But it does not help answer my question as to how to train this behaviour step by step using marker method.

It is good that your dog understands the game and finds the object. But what to do to teach a dog that does not understand.

I haven't trained this, although I've had a couple dogs that just naturally did it, but I'd give this a try. Break it down step by step; first I'm going to assume the dog has a solid retrieve, and understands how to do scent discrimination with your scent. If not, I have an article on how I teach this on my website at http://www.dantero.com/retrieve.php. If they know how to do scent discrimination, then you just need to teach them the concept of doing it with someone else's scent that you have indicated to them. Kind of like teaching tracking, most people teach the basic concept with tracks they lay themselves, and then they introduce other people's tracks.

These are the behaviors I'd look for. In each step I'd start with the dog sitting by me. I would also only use an item once, so the dog isn't cuing in on its own scent, or your scent, after the first retrieve. Since the whole point is "retrieve based on someone else's sent", this is VERY important. Once you or the dog touches the item, it is not used again in that session. In each step you do what you need to do so the dog is successful, i.e. go with them at first, repeat commands, whatever but you don't proceed to the next step until the current one is solid, i.e. can be done with a single command, without your help. It's also best if whatever step you are currently on, you do a few of the step before it when you start your session first, to "warm up", then move to the step you are working on.

Someone else shows the dog an item, teases a little if needed, puts it down on the ground within visual distance, you tell dog to retrieve the item.

Someone shows them an item then "hides" it, while dog is watching. Easy hide, like behind a bucket, rock, etc.

Someone shows them an item, hides it (still easy hides), turn the dog around so they break the visual contact with the hide location, then turn back and send the dog to retrieve it.

At this point I'd introduce having the dog scent a second item, then go all the way back to the beginning. I wouldn't introduce having the dog sent the item right away; I want to make sure they will retrieve something I didn't throw first, without confusing the issue with an intermediary (the scenting) step. I would also try to do these steps with multiple people so they don't just learn to fetch things with "John's scent".

I'd start making the hides a little harder, until the dog is reliably searching for and finding the scented item in reasonably difficult hides.

Then I would start introducing having other items near the retrieve item. Starting with items the dog is less likely to pick up, i.e. the retrieve item is a handkerchief, and then I might have someone else put some rocks or chunks of wood around it. Once the dog is solid on this, then I'd start having someone add similar items, until they were putting the same item around the scented item.

Anyone got any intermediate steps they might add, or tweaks to the steps I gave?

Kadi>> Thank you for your kind reply. My dogs can successfully smell a line up of upto 10 kerchiefs and bring the one with my scent. No problems there.

I put the scented(my scent) one in the line up, Wipe my own forehead with my hands, , place it near the muzzle of the dog and say "smell, smell, smell..." and then say "match" to ask the dog to match the kerchief with my scent. I did this because I knew that I would have to graduate upto C6-Class C where I have to match other's scent.


But I doubt if my dogs ever use the information I try to give them by placing my own scent near their muzzle. They are constantly pulling away because they want to go and get the kerchief. they are like, Dont bore me with this "smell, smell, smell" crap , I know what you want.


Today I tried a stranger's scent on two kerchiefs. One in my hand held with a pair of tongs and the other in the line up and my dogs were successful. I held the kerchief to their muzzle and said "smell, smell, smell " while closing their eyes. and said "match" . They were successful. BUT all the other kerchiefs were unscented. I still think that my dogs solved the problem by just picking up the one with a human scent on it.

I don't know what will happen if I add decoys. I do not want to reward wrong behaviours . The problem is, with scent work, I have no visual clue about how the dog is solving the problem. Only the dog knows. So I want to be very careful and not reinforce my dog for wrong behaviours.


I have planned to work with only one scented kerchief (by a stranger) in the line up and no decoys, till I figure this thing out. I need to be absolutely sure what is the right way to teach "scent matching"

Do you guys have this kind of behaviour in AKC obedience?

it sounds like you are pretty close to getting it. maybe you can use a board to tie the decoys down? that way he cant pick up the wrong one.

Here is my question. I guess the biggest problem is, how do I teach my dog that the information I am giving it is very important / essential to solve the problem.

In other words, how do I teach him that he has to REMEMBER the smell I gave him .

I use marker/clicker.

repetition. when you practice over and over he will see that the scent you show him is the one he is supposed to find. and of course using different scents to generalize it. so one day you may use bay leaves to scent the kerchief in a plastic bag the next you could use vanilla as your scent (but dont use bay leaves again on vanilla day) and so on. of course use peoples scent too. then on trial day it is just another run through but your scent will be the judges.

Does AKC obedience have any thing like this exercise? Or people in UK have any thing like this in their obedience? I am sure Indian KC rules were copied off UK rules.

In AKC and French Ring it's the handler's scent. I'm not sure on UKC, I think it's the handler's scent also.

I think you are on the right track. I wouldn't worry to much about them taking the wrong one on occasion, just give a "wrong" marker, put it to one side, and have them try again. Then make the reward a little extra when they are right on that try. The only time I've seen this not work is when the dog had a forced retrieve and was more focused on just getting something and bringing it back than getting the right item. But with a clicker trained dog it should be pretty easy to mark the right and wrong behavior. You can even mark the right behavior when they are sniffing, before they actually pick it up, so they know that "sniff" was correct. Kind of like starting to teach a sit by marking as the butt sinks, then later asking for a full sit. I would not mark a "wrong" when they are sniffing the wrong one though or it may confuse them if it's OK to check each item or not.

I don't use tie downs, did years ago but my dogs just took it as a challenge and tried harder to bring back the item they thought I wanted. I also prefer to be able to rearrange items each time, putting them closer or further apart as that session seems to need.