Sniffing Around Scent Work

In my last post (click here to read: Is Your Dog Struggling with Containers), I talked about watching a team run in a trial in the Advanced level of containers. Lulu (not her real name, by the way) the terrier was struggling, and her handler was frustrated. In this particular trial, the containers were set up in three rows of five—not an optimal setup for a beginner.

WHAT? I can hear you say “how on earth could the arrangement of the containers matter to the dog?”

The arrangement matters because it affects how much convergence will occur on the containers. Convergence is where two or more target odors collide with each other. Convergence is a tricky problem for the dogs to solve, something akin to us trying to untangle two (or more) skeins of yarn. It takes patience and a certain amount of back and forth work in order for the dog to understand where the difference sources of odor are.

When you have multiple rows, the containers are closer together and you get more convergence. When you have a single line, or a U or circle shape, there is less convergence because the containers are farther apart.

Here is a representation of three rows of containers with two hides. The dots represent odor molecules. You can see how much the odor is clinging to cold containers, and also how much it is colliding.

The convergence on the containers is what causes the dogs to search so erratically among the rows (what is often known as “ping-ponging”). It is NOT your dog running around randomly. It is NOT your dog trying to confuse you. Your dog is following odor, and trying to figure out which odor is where. He has to run back and forth between the container to figure out where the concentration of odor is strongest.

Here is a representation of a U shaped container search with two hides. You can see how much less the odor molecules are both clinging to the containers AND colliding with each other.

Here is a video of Astra with one hide on a U set up, you can see she is working very systematically and not bouncing around:

Here is a video of Yeti on rows, you can see how he “ping pongs”:

Stay tuned! My next topic will be handler errors on containers!

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