Juliette Mylius | 2 August 2023
Today was our very first Scent Work session with my dog Duke! Overall, I would have to say he did well. My aim was to teach him ‘search’ which applies to sniffing the birch scent. I also wanted to see if he had any hunt drive and work on his odour recognition.
To set up I made use of flat cones and made a ‘yellow square’ which would be my ‘Scent Work Training Area’, I aim for Duke to eventually associate this area with doing scent work specifically. I also prepared my tin and decided to put 3 cotton buds (birch scented) in just to make sure it was strong, and he knew the command.
When training in scent work, I also decided to put his collar on to also make that an association with scent work. Of course, I also got my training gear too…
Now to the training part. As this is the first training session post of The Scent Work Series, here’s an overview of how I will structure them:
- Set up
- How I structured the session
- What I trained (also any specifics on how I trained new commands)
- Anything that didn’t go as planned.
- Anything I would do differently next time (if any)
- My plans for next session
So, for this session I mainly did my usual recommended structure which was to start off with some basic obedience, move to the new commands and end with some basic obedience. I found it was especially important to incorporate that basic obedience in this instance to give Duke some commands that he knows well. This is so he starts off confident, excited, happy, and ready to train and learn new commands. However the session goes, it’s also the top priority to make it fun for him.
Going along with that, at some points he did evidently get a bit frustrated or confused. When he was confused, I subtly pointed him as to what he was meant to be doing e.g., moving the tin closer for him to sniff. When he was frustrated, I like to do a quick 1 or 2 commands obedience break like moving away and calling him for a sit or doing a stay, come etc.
For session 1 I trained Duke a basic ‘search’ and ‘show me’. Of course, these commands still need work but I’m happy how he went. Duke was a quick learner, but I did repeat the commands a few times to really get it. To train ‘search’ I started off by holding the hot (scented) tin in front of him. When he sniffed it, I gave him a ‘yes’ (mark) and a treat (reward). This was repeated quite a few times and eventually, I started saying ‘search’ as he went to sniff it, then mark & reward.
‘Show me’ is just a little extra command that I added in. It’s basically a ‘double check’ situation where after Duke does a ‘search’ I might ask him ‘show me’ and he points at it again. However, I didn’t use this every time – just occasionally.
Of course, training outside does often come with distractions. At one point, the dogs got distracted and started barking at something, so I just brought them inside and resumed training. Then took them out again, realised they were still distracted by it and went back inside with them.
Finally, I finished off the session with some obedience outside.
In this session I did also try Duke with 2 tins a few times. One hand had the hot tin (scented) and the other had the cold tin (empty), he did get this right which was great to see and helped me think about what I would train next session.
So, what are the plans for session 2? I think I will continue the basic hot tin ‘search’ that I did in this session, just to keep Duke more familiar with it. Then, I will also probably work on a 2-tin exercise (1 hot, 1 cold) with him a bit more. I will also start training scent work with my other dog in the same methods now that I know more as to what I’m doing. However, this series is will continue to mainly focus on the training progress with Duke.
This training session was also filmed so you can check out some footage of it on our YouTube @practicepaws or below:
The next post will be out on Monday (The 11th) discussing session 2 & 3. Then on Thursday (The 14th) we will dive into what makes a Scent Work Kit!
Feel free to give us some feedback on how you’re finding this series so far on our Instagram @practice_paws we would love to hear your feedback and of course also any recommendations if you are already training in Scent Work!