One of the things you have to figure out is what type of indication you want...sit, down, bark, scratch....A good way to start is to create drive with the toy that he likes...do this by playing retrieve...once he retrieves the item let him carry
have someone that doesn't have a problem being antimated help...have them toss the toy up and let it fall on the ground..the dog should be offering some behavior at this time wanting to get to the scented item...(PVC with holes in it is good)
Let the dog see your helper hide the item...give him your command word and let him go....if he has good search/hunt drive he will put his nose down to find the object....once he finds it and offers the indication you immediately reward him with your desired toy....
I'm glad you started this thread, Michael. I've been curious about the same topic.
With no guidance or knowledge on the topic, my only plan was to lay out identical objects, one of them scented. Maybe only 2 or 3 objects total. Then I would mark and reward for any attention to that specific object, over and over, changing up the order every time. Hopefully a connection would be made. It makes sense to ME, but whether my dog would pick up on that is another story. We'll see.
I think I remember an article about how to scent train a dog in the Whole Dog Journal recently. I'll have to dig it out and look. I guess tracking is catching on as a amateur sport.
I just dug out the article.. Its in the August 2009 issues. They have a couple links. I apologize if you have to cut and paste, I'm typing this on my Blackberry and have limited posting capabilities:
When teaching scents you can mix them together, especially drugs, it's called a cocktail.
Lisa you can mix scents together but it is better in training not to combine scents. You want the dog to learn to look for individual odor and not odors that are lumpped together.
Its the same principle as those of you who train with the tennis ball. You eventually have to wean the dog off the scent of the ball using a wooden dowel laced with scent.
I have never used the cocktail method personally,I do introduce only one scent at a time for that reason.
The difficulty with starting your own business is you have to have state and DEA licenses (if using drugs) and the dogs have to be certified. It is difficult to find someone credible to certify the dogs if you are not LEO, military or a professional dog trainer.
Lisa, I have also heard of that method from the K9 Handler I know. His dog in particular was trained with the cocktail method on tennis balls. He said they give them those balls to play with as early as pups to get them imprinted to the scent. Then slowly work on separating on the individual odors later. The initial scent work was started in Czechoslovakia and finished here in the states so I don't know if that has anything to do with it. That is way too complicated for my little brain to wrap around, so I am going to stick with my pheasant and rabbit scent from my field work days, lol!
Meredith, if you train a Blackberry Detection Dog, I will be your first customer! I would lose my head if it wasn't attached to my body! ....and I can't live without my Blackberry.
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Re: Scent work--Starting a new article
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