Sniffing Around Scent Work

Oh the tiny details that go into scent work training!! This week’s topic is how to properly tape your Handler Discrimination cotton ball to an object. That’s right, you heard me, there is a right and a wrong way to use the tape. Ok, let me restate: an optimal way to use the tape.

In one of my recent trials, Yeti finally finished his Master Handler Discrimination title (HOORAY!!) on his first run. But on his second run, which was in the same area (interiors with chairs and a table first, then boxes) he floundered and couldn’t find even one cotton ball (there were two).  I was puzzled, until the judge told me to pull the hides off the chairs, and I saw that the cotton balls had been taped up very tightly to the bottom of the chair, with the tape wrapped around the cotton ball (see picture). Now I understood why Yeti hadn’t found anything, and I was proud that he had not yielded to the pressure to find SOMETHING and just false alert on a random object.

We don’t pay much attention to how we tape the vessels for searches in the oil division—so why should we care about this for the HD element?

In HD, the “source” we are searching for is a tiny amount of human odor on a cotton ball (or glove, for the Novice level). That odor is so small that we have trouble smelling it.

 In fact, not that much is known about what even makes up “human odor”—although science is gaining on this (Dr. Paola Prada-Tiedemann at Texas Tech is publishing some very interesting work on this, I was able to sit in on one of her webinars last year). It is thought that what the dogs are detecting when they smell human odor is made up of skin cells, bacteria, vapor, and sweat. Most people scent their objects by rubbing them in their hands or tucking them in their bra. The amount of sweat/bacteria/skin cells absorbed by that cotton is almost undetectable.

Compare this to the essential oils: in AKC we put two full drops of oil on a q-tip, and that oil creates a huge odor cloud—even our weak human noses can smell it from a small distance. So we don’t have to worry a great deal about blocking the big cloud of essential oil odor—it will push its way out in spite of most barriers.

However, the small, subtle cloud of human odor that is emanating from the cotton ball can be blocked by putting tape over it and binding it tightly to an object. Not completely blocked, but blocked enough so that the dog has to work harder to get odor. See the picture below for an example of what I mean.

One can put tape over a cotton ball and still leave a lot of room for air to flow around it, which in turn, allows the odor to flow freely—see the pic below.

Now, is it possible for a dog to get the odor from a cotton ball with the tape bound tightly (incorrectly) over it? Yes, it is.

However, In  competition, we are talking about a situation where there is no aging of the hide, and we are asking the dog to find a very small amount of odor in an unfamiliar setting, in a very short period of time, under a lot of pressure (strangers watching, handler stressed, etc.).

In order to create an optimal condition for the dog, we want to make sure that as much air as possible is circulating around the cotton ball. The air currents are what carry the odor to the dog’s nose. This is why the regulations state that the cotton ball MUST BE accessible to the dog, and this is why we don’t want to block any part of the cotton ball with tape.

There is SO MUCH we don’t understand about human odor, even when dogs are searching for actual humans, that I am amazed that any dog can pass the HD element. There are days when I think that competing in this element is downright crazy….and yet that doesn’t stop me. Yeti and I are working on our Master HD Elite legs right now, two down and eight to go! Last weekend we even managed to place first!

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