Sniffing Around Scent Work

Last weekend I ran two Detective trials with my older girl, Astra. I entered them just for the fun of it. Astra has her Detective title already (in fact, she was the first Lagotto Romagnolo to earn the Detective title) but I thought it would be a good idea to run her for fun and practice, and maybe get a few Qs towards a second Detective title.

In both runs, I made a disastrous decision and we “falsed out” in the first couple of minutes. This was totally my fault. Astra was searching well, and was sniffing areas where odor had drifted. I misinterpreted her behavior, partly because I have not been practicing with her – I have been concentrating on Yeti’s training, and the two of them have radically different styles of communication—and partly because I have recently been having a lot of discussions with other trainers about the importance of teaching students to read a dog when the “final trained indication” doesn’t happen for whatever reason, and so that was on the top of my mind. I got “blurty.” I called an alert where there was no alert.

It is really disappointing to make that kind of mistake, and when you are an instructor and a judge, and should KNOW BETTER, the pressure to be a perfect handler and trainer (or at least, a really good one) is absolutely crushing.

However. I have recently made a resolution to learn from my dogs and not get mired in the swamp of self- recrimination, regret, and shame and blame. I recently wrote about how our dogs often learn more quickly from their mistakes, because they do something wrong (like alert on the wrong object) don’t get a reward, and then they just do something different in the next trial, because they realize that behavior didn’t work (here is the link to that post: https://sniffingaroundscentwork.com/2023/02/15/calling-the-false-alert/ ).

Us humans? We rant and rail about our mistakes. We blame ourselves, and the circumstances, the venue, and often the judge. We talk about it endlessly. We continue to kick ourselves for that mistake long after the event is over. WHY didn’t we SEE the mistake at the time? HOW could this happen? WHY are we so stupid?

Does this ruminating and blaming help us do better in our next run? No, generally it does not. I think it mostly focuses our attention on the mistake, instead of on an alternative behavior, and makes us prone to REPEATING that mistake instead of moving on.

In order to move on, we need to acknowledge the mistake, and then focus on the improvement strategy. We need to limit the self-bashing self talk, and encourage some kindness towards ourselves. Acceptance is an important part of change. Recognizing that we all make mistakes (even when we know BETTER) allow us to be stronger handlers, kinder trainers, more skilled  instructors, and more empathetic judges.

Often our friends and fellow competitors do not help us. They pounce on us the second we leave the search area. “He told you five times where the hide was! Why didn’t you call it?!!”

I would like to point out to EVERYONE that in that moment after you have just lost the search, and the Q, and possibly that title that you have been working really hard for, you are at your most vulnerable. Your adrenaline level is still high from being in the search, your emotions are raw, and the disappointment is devastating. And that is NOT the time for anyone to point out mistakes. We all need recovery time after a failure.

I think we all need to strive to observe good competition etiquette and limit our comments to  “good try, you will get it next time.” If your friend or fellow competitor needs training advice, I am sure they will ask for it later, after they have had a chance to process their disappointment, or they can  review the video and or speak to their instructor about it. We all need to remember that when you are watching the search from the sidelines and KNOW the hide location, EVERYTHING is crystal clear. When you are in the thick of the action, it is not.

And remember that mistakes are inevitable, and are a crucial part of learning. We will all do worse before we do better.

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