Sniffing Around Scent Work

I am teaching a beginner Handler Discrimination class this month, and am so excited that it is going well. One of my students brought up a question about the latex gloves (that the steward wears) in the upper level HD classes. She asked “does the hide steward change gloves for each competitor?” This has come up before, in fact, it comes up almost every time I judge this element.

In the upper levels of the HD class, the dog is searching for a cotton ball hidden in interiors or exteriors. The hide steward takes the cotton ball from the handler and tapes it onto the hide area that the judge has designated.

The AKC rules state that:

“The hide steward will be responsible for hiding the handler-scented article and will wear latex, nitrile, or vinyl gloves while doing so. Although it is permitted for the odor division classes, judges are not permitted to set their own hides for the Handler Discrimination classes. This is because the judge’s scent is used for discrimination, so extra care must be taken not to expose the handler-scented article to the judge’s scent.”

The steward wears gloves so that the handler’s scent on the cotton ball is not “contaminated” by the hide steward’s scent.  This makes sense, since our hands have oils and sweat that could be absorbed by a cotton ball.

However, the the steward does not have to change gloves in between competitors.

 And the follow up question is always “why not? doesn’t some of the odor from each competitor’s cotton ball rub off on the gloves and contaminate the next cotton ball that the steward handles?”

This is a good question, as it follows logically that some contamination might occur, but in fact, it is not really a concern, and here is why:

First, the amount of “source,” that would rub off onto a stewards gloves from a cotton ball would be very minimal. Even if the steward is actually touching the cotton ball with her gloved hands (more on handling techniques later), it is a super brief contact, AND cotton is a super absorbent material and does not readily give material up once it has absorbed it. The cotton fibers are actually hollow, and they suck moisture and air in. So very little of the skin cells or sweat would actually be transferred to another cotton ball.

Secondly, even if some of the “source” was transferred onto the gloves and then your target cotton ball, most dogs are not going to be put off by a tiny amount of distraction odor on your cotton ball. Dogs are opportunists, especially when it comes to searching for odor, and will search for the biggest, most dominant odor in the odor “picture.” Very few odors that dogs come across are untainted by other things.

Thirdly, this is NOT surgery. We are playing a game with our dogs here, not dealing with a life and death sterile field issue. It is a huge waste of latex/vinyl gloves to have the steward change for every competitor, not to mention a waste of time, and an added expense for the club.

I am aware that some judges do have their stewards change gloves, and that is their prerogative. However, at the official AKC judges  seminars (which all judges have to take in order to be licensed), it is being mentioned that changing gloves is not necessary.

Have you signed up to get posts delivered directly to email? I am no longer putting all my posts on Facebook. Scroll up to the top (or down to the bottom if you are on a mobile device) and put your email in the black box.