Folks,

I am stuck and I need help. There is a obedience show coming up May 12th and I need help.

I am having problems with scent discrimination exercise. The exercise is as follows.

1. 7 - 10 Handkerchiefs are laid at 3 feet intervals of which one is scented with my scent.

2. The dog has to go from heel position , investigate all the objects, pick up the scented one and bring it back to me.


Kaiser can do this but he has the following problems.

1. Every once in a while he will not want to go look for it . Right now, when that happens , I take him by the leash and make him walk past all of the kerchiefs , and when I do that he will indicate on the scented one every single time. What should I do to make him be enthusiastic. He likes to play tug, but when I try to use it, he false indicates on the first kerchif(nearest one) so that he can get the tug. When I say No, he will pick it up and bring it to me and sit in front to see if he can get the tug. Since there was a lot of negative reinforcements with the tug, I stopped using it.

2. He will not want to look till the end of the line and pick up the scented one in the first pass. Let us say that there are 10 Kerchiefs and my scented one is the 5th, I want him to go look at all the 10 and pick up the scented one.

What should I do to make him check out each and every singe kerchief?



Kindly help.


Regards

Ram

He may be confused by the numbers.
Start with just two kerchiefs and tie down the one that doesn't have your scent on it. ignore him unless he marks the correct one.
As he understands the exercise better add more tied down.
There is no reason he should be required to check out all ten and then go back. You may very well be creating problems when you expect him to pass the scented one in order to check the rest. He knows you want the one with your scent but your asking him to continue down the line.
When he false indicates just ignore him until he gets the correct one.
A behavior not rewarded will extinguish itself in time.

you mean tie down as in tie it to a fixed object so that he cant physically pick it up?

this may or may not help..in schutzhund we use food rewards on our sent pad for the begining portion of training to track. maybe wrap a high value treat in your sented hankie for a few days. so he will accociate your sent with GOOD stuff. and it will also help his focus to be on the one that smells just like you vs the others. then when he brings it to you you can give him another chuck of high value. that will make him come quicker and quicker to you..once he has that down reward at the end with his tug and then remove the other piece that is in the hankie. Just a thought..hope you and your k-9 pal get it all worked out!