Sniffing Around Scent Work

We all think we want a smart dog. We envision the dog learning effortlessly, from one or two repetitions. Of them understanding us and easily following directions. We imagine first place ribbons and High In Trial rosettes. We imagine the jealousy of our peers.  What we don’t imagine…oh dear heaven, what we don’t imagine, are the myriad ways in which a smart dog can be smart in ways we don’t want them to be. A thinking dog is also often a creative dog, and although they do learn quickly, they also think of solutions that we have not thought of, and they don’t hesitate to implement them.

I am convinced that Yeti was destined to be my dog in order to rid me of any ego I had developed regarding training and scent work. If you have been blessed with a good dog (as I was with Astra) you have a tendency to take a little more credit than you should for their accomplishments. And then you get your next dog, and you discover how deluded you have been.  

Yeti, as I have mentioned in past blogs, is amazingly bright, but is also easily bored and a creative thinker. While he often learns the lessons I am teaching very quickly, he also learns thing you don’t want him to learn very quickly, and he likes to make up his own rules and run his own games, just to make things interesting.

Which brings me to the topic of my post today: The last NW3 containers run.

It was the last run of the day at the NW3. I hate running containers last; the dogs and handlers are tired and tired teams make mistakes.

However, for this particular NW3, it seemed that the nosework gods had smiled upon us. There were 12 boxes, in a circle. Two minutes was the time limit. A very easy search.

Yeti was towards the end in the run order. We approached the start line with good cheer and had a good start. Yeti sniffed a couple of boxes and then went to the back of the room and started sniffing the walls. I expect this from him, he often gets a lot of good information from the walls. Usually he will get some clues about which boxes have odor, and then rule some boxes out and alert. This time, however, he proceeded to sniff the walls for a solid one minute and thirty seconds. I know exactly how long it was, because when the timer gave the thirty second warning, he suddenly ran over and started searching the boxes very professionally, sniffing one after another. By the time he got to the last box, I was certain that the search was blank (no odor present) and I called finish with certainty and about eight seconds to spare.

My immediate interpretation: WHY ON EARTH DIDN’T HE JUST SEARCH THE BOXES ? I could have called finish in about thirty seconds. He clearly knows that I want to see him sniff the boxes—because when the thirty second call was made (and he knows what “thirty seconds” means) he made a point of obviously sniffing each box.

But that is thoroughly human perspective. And when I considered it later (much later!) I realized that I was the one missing the point.

I tend to be insecure about Yeti’s container performances, because when we practice, he fools around and misses hides.

 Because he finds them boring. In fact, when I reviewed my records, I found that at trial, he doesn’t usually miss containers, or false on distractions. He placed first and second in containers in NW1, NW2, and got second place in his previous NW3 (and in that trial, there were only two dogs who passed).

In this particular NW3, he immediately knew there were no hides in the room, and so he thought “why sniff the boxes? It’s dumb and boring. I am going to explore around the room instead, that is way more interesting….”  And he figured I would get the message about the boxes being blank. He figured I would trust him because I have seen him work containers very successfully before, repeatedly!

And yet, I didn’t. To my credit, I didn’t nag him into falsing on a box (he has taught me that much!) but I stood there, worrying, wondering what was going on.

When we got the thirty second warning, he realized that I wasn’t getting it, and suddenly resorted to the box-to-box sniffing that the stupid human needs to see.

Here is the video of that search (with Yeti’s probable thoughts as subtitles).

The thing we don’t realize about the smart dogs is that they will end up teaching us much more than we will ever teach them.

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