Sniffing Around Scent Work

7/31/2024

When I got the email announcing the venue change for the trial, I was immediately apprehensive. I had chosen to enter this trial specifically because they were holding it in a school, which is my favorite type of trial site,  and the judges’ panel was well chosen. I am very particular about both venue and judges, because in my experience, a flaw in either of these factors can totally sabotage scent work performance. Scent work is a delicate, tricky dance. I have never seen a sport in which luck is such a huge factor: there are so many environmental variables that affect odor and its accessibility that there is almost nothing about the sport which makes it fair.

After opening the email, I saw that the club had obtained the use of  tv station building. Mulling it over, I decided that it had definite possibilities—a business place meant offices and lots of walls, and since we were entered in Masters level classes that was important to me. I decided I would go ahead with my plans to compete. Because I am so picky, I have a limited opportunities to trial, and Yeti was at a point where I needed to test our training to see where the holes were.

So when the designated weekend arrived, I packed up the car, loaded up the dogs and off we went.  

And, I was delightfully surprised. The old tv station turned out to be not just adequate, but  a wonderful place for a scent work trial, it was a virtual warren of studios and storage areas and offices. There were rooms, lots of rooms of all sizes! Enough for three detective searches with a very minimal re-use of the areas, AND three days’ worth of Master Interiors (again, without re-use) AND Master HD!! Woo hoo!

It wasn’t perfect, mind you. The hallways were very narrow, and the indoor crating space was very tight. But the club did a great job of organizing and keeping the line ups to a minimum, and people were very considerate about keeping a tight leash when running dogs in and out the doors and halls. And the rooms they used for the  buried were a bit too small for my comfort. But these were minor issues.

It wasn’t just that there were plenty of rooms to use for all the classes. The size of the rooms for the Masters Interiors (and Master HD) were pretty much perfect: rooms that you could search easily within a two or three minute time limit, without too much clutter, and just enough possibility for some interesting hides.

Day One Master Interiors

The first room (see below) is just about perfect for a two minute search (all three of the rooms were two minutes, which is also ideal because I didn’t have to muck around with my timer too much). There are only about six to ten places where a hide could be placed, and there wasn’t a lot of square footage to cross or cover. It could be problematic if there were three hides, but otherwise most dogs should be able to search it fairly easily.

Master Interiors Room 1

The second room was a tiny bit bigger, and there was more furniture, with more drawers. But still, not a lot of square footage, and it wasn’t an irregular space, which makes it a bit easier—no alcoves where odor can get trapped. You can see that some of the desk and filing cabinet drawers were open, and that was good too—even if odor was hidden in one of the closed drawers, the open ones would make a hide more accessible to the dog.

Master Interiors Room 2

Amazingly, the third room was the same size and shape! More shelves, and less drawers, and a little bit of clutter, but nothing that should cause a lot of trouble in a search.

Master Interior Room 3

Yeti’s Runs

Even with the perfect rooms, and good judges, I was not at all sure of getting a passing run in Master Interiors. Young Yeti showed early signs of brilliance in interiors, but after adolescence really took hold, we had a lot of communication difficulties.

On our first day, room one had one hide (on the far side of the sink cabinet).  Yeti alerted quickly, I called it, and got the “where” question from the judge. Fortunately I was able to answer accurately. We moved on, and I am sure I lingered longer than was necessary, but I was able to call finish before my timer went off. The judge indicated that we were correct in our judgements, and we celebrated briefly with cookies, before moving to room two.Room Two was a little trickier: Yeti did an initial pass around the room, and took a pause and slowed very perceptibly, then stopped and looked at me. I knew there was a possibility it was blank, but as I said, Yeti and I have had some mis-communication on the absence of odor in the recent past, so I was disinclined to take his word on it, and we circled the room several more times before I took a deep breath and called finish. The judge nodded briskly and said “yep” and we moved to room three. We had never made it this far in Master Interiors before, but I felt surprisingly calm.

Room three was a little bit easier than room two, and at least we had our blank area behind us, so I knew there had to be at least one hide here. Up to three hides, I reminded myself on the start line, as I was resetting the timer on my phone, don’t get cocky. Don’t rush it.

Yeti found the hide (under the desk) after his customary orientation round, and pausing to sniff at some distracting items in the shelves. We got our yes, and he paused on the step stool, giving me a sharp “there is something here” look and then slowly sitting down (his indication). I paused and waited. Something seemed off about his indication. I waited some more. He stared at me and I stared back. This staring contest had happened to me before and it usually meant that there was not odor. I have trained hard to get a confirmation nose bump on source if he sits down and I don’t call it immediately.

And finally, after what seemed like an eternity,  he moved on. I waited until he had sniffed around the room some more (tossing his head at me every few steps to let me know that he was DONE) before taking a very, very deep breath and calling finish. The judge said the magic yes, and I whooped with relief, tossing Yeti the prize of all prizes, his tennis ball. It was our first Master Interior pass, and it was very sweet.

And although the rooms and the judges for Master Interiors were just as good on days two and three of the trial, we didn’t manage to make it past room one on those days. That’s ok. I expect to be working on this element for quite a while.

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