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Continue reading →: Read This Before You Go To Your Next Trial
Yeti would like a word with you…he’s heard you talking about the searches Sept. 11, 2023 Without a doubt, the most difficult part of competing in scentwork/nosework is not imprinting the dog on essential oils, and it’s not training the indication. It’s not learning to read your dog or trusting…
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Continue reading →: Don’t Make This Mistake at Trial
Sept. 3, 2023 Once upon a time, I was running Astra in Masters level interiors. In AKC Master Interiors, you have three searches, in three separate rooms. In each room, you have the potential of no hides (blank), one, two, or three hides. Except only one room can have zero…
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Continue reading →: Novice HD Troubleshooting
Accessible sock in a box Aug. 27, 2023 Last week a friend emailed me with a question about training Novice HD. She had just started training, and had progressed wonderfully until she got to the part where she was putting her item in boxes. She had started the sequence well…
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Continue reading →: Trial Prep: Thinking Through the Training Session
July 23, 2023 You may have noticed I haven’t blogged in a while. Well, it’s summer. Hell-mouth hot, and a good time to take a break. However, fall is fast approaching now, and I have a lot of trials booked in September. I got up this morning, looked at the…
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Continue reading →: Mantrailing–Part Two
Last fall I attended an introductory class on Mantrailing, given by Mantrailing Global, an organization started in Germany which teaches Mantrailing as a sport. It was almost instantly addicting, Yeti “got it” immediately, as did many dogs that I saw that first weekend. I loved that the starting process taps…
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Continue reading →: Troubleshooting HD (Advanced)
This morning I woke up and realized that I needed to work the dogs before I headed off to the day job. Yeti had been restless and pestering me the evening before, and Astra was pent up from being on crate rest all week for a minor injury. Sniffing is…
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Continue reading →: Refinding the Balance
It’s now getting towards the hot season in Texas, and I am taking a break from trialing. Just in time. In the last month or so, I have found myself getting very impatient with Yeti, casting a critical eye over his containers work—why doesn’t he actually WORK them? He runs…
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Continue reading →: The NQ: Healing the Shame that Binds Us
Last weekend I ran two Detective trials with my older girl, Astra. I entered them just for the fun of it. Astra has her Detective title already (in fact, she was the first Lagotto Romagnolo to earn the Detective title) but I thought it would be a good idea to…
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Continue reading →: Calling Finish on Unknown Hides – Part Two
In one of my earlier posts (Calling Finish on Unknown Hides: Strategies and Philosophies) I discussed the two philosophies in when to call finish on unknown hides situation: you can let the dog run the search, and learn how to read the signals of when he is finished searching and…
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Continue reading →: Calling the (False) Alert
Although we all wish this didn’t happen, there comes a time when our dogs will false alert in a trial. (False alert = alert when there is no target odor present). If we are lucky, this happens early in his career, because the longer you go without a false, the…
Hello,
I’m Ellen
A Scent Work trainer, instructor, competitor, student, and judge. Welcome to Sniffing Around Scent Work, a blog where I write about my experiences, thoughts and musings on my favorite past time.
Sniffing Around Scent Work 