Sniffing Around Scent Work

I know I promised more on training the Handler Discrimination element, and I am working on a post, it is just going to take a bit more time. In the meantime, I thought I would share this video of Yeti working a vehicle, from a trial last weekend.

SPOILER ALERT: We don’t qualify in this run.  (And that’s OK!)

I started Yeti on vehicles at the beginning of the year, and have only worked them sporadically since then (see past Blog posts: Vehicles, O Vehicles and On Recipes and Vehicles.) However, he seemed to have the concept of the cars being a potentially good place for a hide, and that is the main thing I look for in beginner dogs. So, in this UKC trial, I decided to experiment with giving him a lot of freedom. He is not quite ready for off leash work, but I can give him almost as much freedom on a flexi leash.

CONDITIONS:

There was a fast 20 mph wind going the day of the trial, and the vehicle area was in an area surrounded on two sides by buildings, so the wind was swirling, and it was also warm and sunny, so I knew the odor was very active. I wasn’t quite prepared for exactly how far the odor was traveling, though.

When I started teaching vehicles, many years ago, I used to fantasize about filling cars with smoke, so that students could see how the odor escapes, and where it goes. Humans are a visual species—we don’t really believe something until we can see it.

But with time, I have learned that if you want to know how the scent is moving, there is no substitute for a good searching dog.

Yeti is bred for working scent, and he is very “odor obedient.” That is, he follows the scent on the air almost exclusively. He shows me exactly where the odor is travelling —and in this case, we can see that the wind and warmth is carrying it very far from the cars.

The hide is in a door seam. I think most of us expect that the odor doesn’t stray far from that seam. But Yeti does not stick to the vehicle when he is searching it. He shows us that the wind and weather is carrying that odor twenty feet and thirty feet away from the car and around the entire area. You can see him  finding the edge of the cone, and then following a path back to the car.

We don’t get the coveted “yes” because he was too far away from source (ah, yes, the fringing!!). Which is not surprising, I have only worked on hides in door seams maybe twice. He just doesn’t have the experience yet to be able to detail the hide–work that last piece of the puzzle until he is right on the source. I was a tiny bit disappointed about the NQ, but overall very pleased with the way he worked and his nice solid alert–he remembered to give the correct signal, instead of just waving his paws at me.

With more experience, he will start searching the cars more closely. After all, vehicles are really just giant containers, and this was how he learned containers: first by following the scent all over the room, and then, after many repetitions on boxes, he learned to focus on the boxes.

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