Sniffing Around Scent Work

July 23, 2023

You may have noticed I haven’t blogged in a while. Well, it’s summer. Hell-mouth hot, and a good time to take a break. However, fall is fast approaching now, and I have a lot of trials booked in September. I got up this morning, looked at the calendar, and decided it was time to do some serious training.

I have been noodling around with Yeti since May, experimenting with rewarding with his ball on some simple hides, doing a few very random interiors, reviewing a little obedience. This means I haven’t put a ton of thought into criteria. But now it is time to get down to it.

I decided to work on containers this morning. I need to prep for an unknown number of containers. While I do have a method for putting out an unknow number of hides when working on my own, I decided that we weren’t quite up to that yet. First, I wanted to review some skills that go into the unknown search: large search with blank containers (to make sure he is paying attention), but also multiple hides, and asking Yeti to “find more” when there are no more hides to be found.

Having decided on the set up and what I want to work on, I sat down to write out my criteria on a piece of paper. I don’t always do this, but I find it a useful technique when I am really trying to focus my training. To do this, I have to consider what are Yeti’s possible reactions to the scenario, and how I should react to those reactions, not just what I want him to do. This will minimize (although not eliminate) me doing stupid things  and getting unwanted consequences for accidentally rewarding a behavior I don’t want, or me losing my temper for Yeti suddenly getting creative.

It is SO easy for a training session to go off the rails, and this has happened so many times when I am feeling the pressure to prepare for a trial, but am also tired or busy, and want to skip the tedious “thinking this through” step, and get something done.

I like to do my criteria with a series of IF THEN statements (with my thought processes added in italics).

This is what I wrote out:

For blank search:

• If he doesn’t focus on the containers (not likely, but it does happen, especially if he thinks he can make me produce a ball by staring at me), then put him up, let Astra search (a particularly potent negative consequence, as the rivalry for attention between him and Astra is very strong)
• If he false alerts on a container, then restart him (don’t want to pull him from the search at this point, let’s start out with a less severe consequence that still sends a message of “nope, not what I wanted”)
• If he gives me any of the “all clear” signals, then stop search, reward with food (there are a number of signals he can give. I want to encourage a particular one, but I will accept any of them right now.)

For the multiple hides search:

• If he doesn’t search, then put him up
• If he false alerts on a container, then restart him
• If he doesn’t focus on the containers, then just wait him out
• If he alerts on a container he has already found, then tell him to keep going
• If he alerts on container correctly then give ONE piece of food, ask “IS THERE MORE?”
• If he gives me any of the “all clear” signals, BEFORE FINDING ALL THE HIDES then restart him (really critical at this point if I want to rely on him for my finish call)
• If he gives me any of the “all clear” signals AFTER finding all the hides, then reward with food

After reviewing this, I wrote HOW MANY REPS at the bottom of the page. And I decide one successful blank search rep, and one successful multiple hides search. This is really important for me, so I can avoid the “let’s try this ONE more time” trap, which has created disasters for me many times in the past.

Having gotten the criteria straight in my head, I set up my containers, and make sure that for the blank search that I act like I am setting a hide—this is critical for Yeti, as he knows ALL OF the patterns that predict a training session, and if one step is skipped, he will pay attention to it. I don’t want him paying more attention to my actions than the presence or absence of odor.

 In this case, I get my odor box, open it up and get a hot vessel and walk around the search field with it, then return it to my box and put the whole thing away. I want there to be a trace of odor present, as Yeti has proven to be prone to jumping to conclusions in the past.  

Then I run my searches. Everything actually goes to plan! Yeti falses twice on the blank search, but I stick to my criteria and restart him, and on the third attempt, I get the result I want. He does really well on the multiple hides search the first time, searching with great focus and finding both hides, and then giving me a really clear “I am done” signal by coming over to me.

I stop after this, give Astra some practice runs, and then give both dogs some ball fetching time, just for extra fun. And I go the extra mile for myself, making notes on the session results and notes for what I need to do in the next session.

Then I indulge myself and bask in some good feeling. Yeti did well. I did well. Fingers crossed, I can keep this up, and get all of our goals accomplished by September.

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