Welcome to the final post of The Scent Work Series! In this post, we will share our overall guide to get started in scent work also diving into problems we ran into in our SW journey and how to fix them!
A big thanks to everyone who has been following along with this series and our scent work journey! We appreciate your support and hope you have enjoyed this!
Our main goal for this series was to give you an insight as to how you get started in a type of dog training. We wanted to encourage you to get into dog training yourself and show how fun training can be. We also wanted to promote the use of positive reinforcement because it is such an effective way to train whilst having fun and bonding with your pooch!
Thanks to everyone who helped with this, and we hope we inspired you to try out some dog training!
This post is basically a 2 in 1 and will include two sections:
- Our Guide to Scent Work
- The Scent Work Series Wrap Up
The guide to scent work is exactly what is sounds like, it will have our final tips and recommendations on how to get started and what to avoid! Then for section 2, we will give you any final info, summaries, and our next plans!
This will be one of our longest posts yet so enjoy!
Our Guide to Scent Work
So, you’re looking to get started in Scent Work? Well, this is the post for you! Instead of sectioning the training steps into sessions, we will do it in ‘steps’. We recommend you spread these out across numerous training sessions. We are not timing them with sessions because all dogs learn differently so this may not be accurate for your dog.
This will be ordered by:
- First Steps
- Step 2 (2 Tin Exercise)
- Step 3 (Back to The Basics – Groundwork)
- Step 4 (Put It All Together and Practice!)
In each step, we will also include an ‘Advance’, this is what you can do to advance/ make the step a tiny bit harder once they start to get it. Once they get good at the advanced part then you can start thinking about moving to the next step…
Before you get started in training, you need to set up for scent work! If you would like to learn how to do this, please check out our post ‘How To Prepare For Your Scent Work Session’ from this Scent Work Series.
The downloadable poster attached to that post may also be of use!
First Steps
To get started, all you need is your 1 tin that is scented (our example will be birch), some treats and of course your pooch!
The first steps in scent work will be easy and repetitive but they are so essential! If you have read our ‘Session 4, 5 & 6’ post then you would know just how important it is to not rush ahead (on purpose or by accident) because it can really cause problems!
So, to get started, make sure you always start training with something your dog knows well like obedience, this gets them confident and happy to start training.
Into scent work, all you want to do is hold the tin close to your dog’s face, if they sniff it, mark it immediately (‘yes’) and then reward with lots of praise and treats!
You don’t want to start scent work by presenting the tin and giving the command. Just let them use their instinct and learn that sniffing it is good and that the birch earns them treats!
Only once they get the hang of this, you then add your verbal cue in (‘search’) when you present the tin so that they start associating sniffing the birch with that command.
Now just repeat! You want to at least do this repetitively for the next 3 sessions or more!
Please note: We recommend rewarding at the tin this helps them realise that the Birch is good, and they get rewarded when they smell it.
Advance: To advance this just a little further, start holding the tin to your side (not in front of their face) so that they ‘have to know to sniff it’.
Step 2; 2 Tin Exercise
By now, your dog knows that:
Birch = Good = Treat
And so, if there’s an opportunity, they will sniff the birch to gain the reward. What they don’t know yet is, what happens if it doesn’t smell of birch?
To set up this exercise, you will need 2 tins. The first one if your usual birch scented tin that you have been using (however you should have been emptying this after every session and then refilling it when training again). The second is completely empty!
These tins need to be identical (like a constant in science) but only one of them should be scented.
Now, hold tins (one in each hand) to your dog’s face. There will now be 2 different scenarios:
- If they sniff the hot tin (scented) then mark and reward
- If they sniff the cold tin, indicate to them to sniff the other one a bit further by moving your hand with the hot tin. Then, once they go to the hot tin, mark, and reward.
Eventually, you will stop indicating to your pooch that the cold tin is the right one and just wait till the go to the hot tin.
Advance: Same as the last advance, to progress in this even more, start holding the tins (one in each hand) more to your side and not at the dogs’ face. This will mean that there will be one on your left and one on your right.
Step 3; Back to The Basics – Groundwork
Your pooch should now be able to identify the hot tin quickly out of 2 tins. So, let’s move on! Our end goal in this tutorial is to have numerous tins on the ground and for your dog to find the 1 scented tin. But we’re currently holding the tins… So, lets fix this!
This step is so important to not rush because otherwise it can become frustrating for your dog! Before we get into the training for this step, lets discuss some of the theory and reasoning as to why we’ll be training step 3 in a specific way:
So, for step 3, we want to start training scent work on the ground. Obviously, you would probably first think of transferring your 2-tin exercise onto the ground, and that makes sense but it’s not the best option.
In our 2-tin exercise, only one of the tins gets the dog a treat, the other one is not rewarded. Simple right? Well, when added to learning this on the ground, it’s a lot for your pooch to think about.
Instead, we want to make this transfer as simple as possible! So, we’ll be going back to our basics… Instead of using two tins, we’ll just have the one. This tin will be hot, so it earns rewards.
Meaning, if your dog sniffs the tin, they will receive a treat. If there were two tins, and you were trying to train on the ground then only one would bring them success and the other would not be rewarded.
You now may be thinking, well why didn’t we just start training on the ground in the first place? Well as scent work is a completely new thing to your dog, we wanted to start off simple and fun. When training, they are usually focusing on you and so they would have to know ‘oh, I need to check the ground to get a treat’ which is more complicated than the tin being in front of them.
With the tin in front of the dog, they don’t have to think about what to do as much, and they will know quicker to sniff it and get a treat. They will also be more likely to sniff the tin.
But isn’t scent work meant to be a fun way to mentally stimulate your dog? Yes! But starting off complicated can make training not as fun and more frustrating and confusing for them. Instead, we’ll slowly work our way to ground training and enjoy the process.
Alright, now let’s dive into the training method!
So back to holding one hot tin, sit down but still hold the tin. You should be holding this right on the floor. This is because they are so used to you holding it. This step is basically between holding the tin and it being on the ground.
Give your verbal cue and when your dog sniffs it, mark, and reward! Keep repeating this and once your dog starts to get it, move onto the advance where we move this to the ground.
Advance: To advance, start not holding the tin and just placing it on the ground. You should still be sitting. Give your verbal cue and when they sniff it, mark, and reward.
Once you are confident with this, start standing with the tin on the ground, give your verbal cue and when they sniff, mark and reward. After every reward, you can also push the tin somewhere new with your foot.
Step 4; Put It All Together and Practice!
For the final step, we will be combining all the things we have taught in each step so far together:
- Step 1: Knowing that sniffing birch is good.
- Step 2: Being able to identify a hot tin from a cold tin.
- Step 3: Finding a hot tin on the ground.
So, in these sessions, we will be training to find a hot tin out of multiple cold ones on the ground…
To get started, lets revisit our two-tin exercise from step 2. On the ground, we’ll have one hot tin and one cold.
You can choose your position (standing or sitting) based off what your dog finds easier and better to focus with but eventually you want to work your way up to standing (like the standing part of Step 3 advance).
When they sniff the hot tin, mark, and reward. If they sniff the cold tin, wait for them to go to the hot one and then mark and reward. If you have waited for a while though, you can indicate to them further as to which is the hot tin, but we recommend to not always do this so that it doesn’t become a habit (with them and you).
Advance: Eventually, start adding in more cold tins so that they must search more to find the hot one. You can always go back a step and practice some more easy things too!
Notes
And that’s it for our tutorial to scent work! We hope this helps when training with your pooch!
Here are a final few training notes and tips! The next section of this post will include our SWS Final Review, Plans and more!
- Never rush any steps in training because this can make it more confusing for your dog!
- After every session you should be removing the cotton buds from your hot tin and either dispose of them in an outside garbage bin or put them in a separate jar (not with your new birch cotton buds)
- This tutorial has used birch as our example. You might also be using scents like cypress, clove, and anise.
- It is helpful to note that your dog is not searching for birch, instead they are searching for birch on cotton buds so if one time you put birch scented cotton buds in a tin and then next time you just put drops of birch in a tin, they would be totally different (we recommend not doing drops – this is just an example)!
- Always use paper cotton buds
- When training a command doing ‘jackpots’ is useful. This is when your pooch does something right, you give them a few treats and once instead of one…
The Scent Work Series Wrap Up
SWS Final Review, info, summaries, and next plans!
Juliette Mylius
And that’s it for The Scent Work Series! Again, a huge thanks to everyone who has supported or followed along with this series! Duke and I have really enjoyed making it!
We would love to hear your final thoughts regarding this series! Did you enjoy it? Is there something you wish we had done different? Leave your thoughts on our latest Insta post in the comments (@practice_paws) or send us an email through our contact page!
This series covered our first 10 sessions of scent work! It has included 10 posts, 6 videos, 10 posters and numerous Instagram posts! Here is a summary of each session!
- Session 1: We got started in scent work and quickly learnt that birch = good!
- Session 2: We practiced and repeated session 1 and started trying out a 2-tin exercise.
- Session 3: We got the hang of our 2-tin exercise!
- Session 4: Problems were found in our training method when trying to teach this on the ground.
- Session 5: Problem resolved; we’re learning on the ground now!
- Session 6: We got the hang of scent work on the ground!
- Session 7: How about 3 tins?
- Session 8: Practicing 3 tins.
- Session 9: We’ve nailed 3 tins!
- Session 10: Scent work is fun!
So, what are our next plans? Well, even with this series ending, we won’t be stopping scent work! Scent work is now part of our regular training routine! We might even post some SWS Updates in the future so stay tuned…
For now, we will be heading back to our blog for a while which hasn’t been active for 2 months! We have got some very interesting, exciting, and hopefully helpful posts planned!
We’ll also be on our Instagram with more updates and cute dog photos! If you’re looking for something to watch, you can check out our YouTube which has also been releasing some SWS content lately.
Thanks for following along with this series! We have really appreciated the support with our scent work journey!
Along with this post, we have just released the final SWS video on our Youtube titled ‘The Scent Work Series’. Even if you have not been watching the previous videos, we really encourage you to watch this 3 minute long video as it is a fun reflection of the series with clips from many different sessions!
We would love to hear your final thoughts on this series through comments on our instagram @practice_paws or by contacting us through our contact page on the Practice Paws website!