Scent training
- Thread starter KhayNette
- Start date
I've done quite a bit of scent training. It's a lot of fun and most dogs can learn it. It can be started at any age, although older dogs with some bad habits might be a bit more challenging.
There are a number of different scent training methods and each has it's benefits and drawbacks depending on your goal. If you can be more specific in what you want him to learn, we can give you some input on how to go about it.
There are a number of different scent training methods and each has it's benefits and drawbacks depending on your goal. If you can be more specific in what you want him to learn, we can give you some input on how to go about it.
lol, if don't need him to sniff out drugs. Items and people. Can you train both?
Even dogs. Actually. We were out camping, near fort where, for 5 days this july. and fishing, with our dogs. My brother his girlfriend, and my boyfriend and I. In Fort Where. That is 800km away from home, in the middle of literally nowhere but bushes and rivers and lakes. My brother's 13 yr old dog dissapeared our 2nd night there, we scoured the bushes half the night, then again the next day. Spent all day looking for her, covered a good 5 km radius of our campsite. Couldnt find her. We kept music on, campfire going with good smells to help her find her way back to us. She finally came back, found her laying by the tent the next day. Would have been nice to have a dog that could have found her for us
Even dogs. Actually. We were out camping, near fort where, for 5 days this july. and fishing, with our dogs. My brother his girlfriend, and my boyfriend and I. In Fort Where. That is 800km away from home, in the middle of literally nowhere but bushes and rivers and lakes. My brother's 13 yr old dog dissapeared our 2nd night there, we scoured the bushes half the night, then again the next day. Spent all day looking for her, covered a good 5 km radius of our campsite. Couldnt find her. We kept music on, campfire going with good smells to help her find her way back to us. She finally came back, found her laying by the tent the next day. Would have been nice to have a dog that could have found her for us
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Yes.
For people, given his age, I would start out with easy hide and seek games. Have someone hold him, and you hide - or if he's more attached to some else, have them do the hiding initially. When he's being held, he should be encouraged to watch where they're going, and the person hiding should run and make attention getting sounds to keep him enthusiastic about going off to chase them. Don't run far at first - you don't want him to lose focus on the person running away. Duck behind a tree or on the other side of a car or around the corner of the house and then the person holding him can release him to go chase/find. It might take some encouragement from the person who was holding him, it might take the person hiding calling him so he can be reminded of why he's looking, but it should be simple enough that it doesn't need much help. When he finds you, give him huge rewards.
As he catches on, start going a little further out of sight when hiding. Still let him watch you run off, but after ducking out of sight, go a little further so he has to really search, but not so far that it's discouraging. Eventually you'll progress to hiding without him watching you run off as well as progressing to having other people do the hiding. But don't try to get there too fast and keep in mind at his age he's going to be easily distracted so keep it simple for a while.
When hiding, consider wind/weather conditions. Different dogs respond differently to the conditions, so it's hard to say what's best. I would start with the wind blowing away from you and towards the dog, but for some dogs that makes too much scent. I also would start with cool weather and a little dampness, but again, that can make for too much scent for some dogs and overwhelm or confuse them. Keep a log of what you do, what the weather conditions are and how he does so you can see what works best. As he progresses you can work on conditions that are more difficult for him, going back to an easier/shorter search to balance out the more difficult conditions.
Also keep in mind what kinds of places he might be asked to do this if it's going to be used for anything other than a game. Woods, water, snow, mountains. Crossing wooden bridges, navigating over fallen trees, slippery ground, searching indoors with a variety of floor surfaces, obstacles, barriers. Ignoring other people/animals/distractions. All are things you would want to incorporate into his day-to-day experiences now so that it's not a big deal when it's needed.
After typing all that out, I previewed it and saw that you'd added to your post about finding dogs...TBH, I don't know of anyone that trains dogs to find both people and other dogs. I don't know how successful it would be to train for both. I also don't know a lot about how dogs are used for finding lost pets but I think a lot of it has to do with the handler having an understanding of lost pet behaviors.
For people, given his age, I would start out with easy hide and seek games. Have someone hold him, and you hide - or if he's more attached to some else, have them do the hiding initially. When he's being held, he should be encouraged to watch where they're going, and the person hiding should run and make attention getting sounds to keep him enthusiastic about going off to chase them. Don't run far at first - you don't want him to lose focus on the person running away. Duck behind a tree or on the other side of a car or around the corner of the house and then the person holding him can release him to go chase/find. It might take some encouragement from the person who was holding him, it might take the person hiding calling him so he can be reminded of why he's looking, but it should be simple enough that it doesn't need much help. When he finds you, give him huge rewards.
As he catches on, start going a little further out of sight when hiding. Still let him watch you run off, but after ducking out of sight, go a little further so he has to really search, but not so far that it's discouraging. Eventually you'll progress to hiding without him watching you run off as well as progressing to having other people do the hiding. But don't try to get there too fast and keep in mind at his age he's going to be easily distracted so keep it simple for a while.
When hiding, consider wind/weather conditions. Different dogs respond differently to the conditions, so it's hard to say what's best. I would start with the wind blowing away from you and towards the dog, but for some dogs that makes too much scent. I also would start with cool weather and a little dampness, but again, that can make for too much scent for some dogs and overwhelm or confuse them. Keep a log of what you do, what the weather conditions are and how he does so you can see what works best. As he progresses you can work on conditions that are more difficult for him, going back to an easier/shorter search to balance out the more difficult conditions.
Also keep in mind what kinds of places he might be asked to do this if it's going to be used for anything other than a game. Woods, water, snow, mountains. Crossing wooden bridges, navigating over fallen trees, slippery ground, searching indoors with a variety of floor surfaces, obstacles, barriers. Ignoring other people/animals/distractions. All are things you would want to incorporate into his day-to-day experiences now so that it's not a big deal when it's needed.
After typing all that out, I previewed it and saw that you'd added to your post about finding dogs...TBH, I don't know of anyone that trains dogs to find both people and other dogs. I don't know how successful it would be to train for both. I also don't know a lot about how dogs are used for finding lost pets but I think a lot of it has to do with the handler having an understanding of lost pet behaviors.
That makes sense. What about the typical "smell this and find who it smells like" ? That would work for anyone, dog or not wouldn't it? Hide and seek is a good way to teach them what find it means.....So technically speaking if he knows find it, and we gave him a smell of something that we want him to find (In the future) Just work your way up to there naturally? or does it need completey different training altogether
Giving them a scent article and then having them search for that might work, but it's more natural for dogs to track animal scent than human scent in the first place, and in teaching them to track people, we specifically work at making sure they don't try to follow animal scents. So to ask them to do both is a bit of a conflict. In theory you'd think scent discrimination is scent discrimination and species shouldn't matter, but I don't know of anyone who has been able to make that work. :dunno: Doesn't necessarily mean it's impossible...IDK...
Scent discrimination is usually done with tracking/trailing dogs, which is different training entirely from what I posted earlier. The hide and seek game usually develops an air scenting dog, but the dog might naturally decide to trail instead in which case you can pretty much work with what he does naturally. Otherwise trailing is taught in a similar way as tracking. Some air scent dogs can learn scent discrimination, but it's not as common and may be a matter of whether or not the dog is able to get it more than the training.
If you want info on how to train trailing, let me know and I'll post it. Also, for him to find objects would be based on article training, which I can also post if you want.
Scent discrimination is usually done with tracking/trailing dogs, which is different training entirely from what I posted earlier. The hide and seek game usually develops an air scenting dog, but the dog might naturally decide to trail instead in which case you can pretty much work with what he does naturally. Otherwise trailing is taught in a similar way as tracking. Some air scent dogs can learn scent discrimination, but it's not as common and may be a matter of whether or not the dog is able to get it more than the training.
If you want info on how to train trailing, let me know and I'll post it. Also, for him to find objects would be based on article training, which I can also post if you want.
If your dog knows names, he can find them. "Find Daddy", dog runs to a place Daddy often is, like the recliner in the family room. If Daddy isn't there, he keeps looking. Find Bandit, the dog. If the dog knows who Bandit is, he'll look for Bandit the same way he looked for Daddy. Outside, he'll do the same thing and quickly resort to using his nose. My Irish Setter would use both air scenting and trail scenting. I'm just saying that once you train your dog to understand what you want (which is why you make noise when you are first hiding), he'll do the best he can. You don't need a scent article to find Daddy or Bandit because your dog knows who they are and what they smell like. He may even know where they are anyway. Not that you can't train your dog to start with a scent, but for your purposes you don't need the dog to strictly follow the scent trail because you aren't interested in finding articles, just the person.
Thanks guys. My boyfriend actually brought up an idea to try and get him to trail as well as air scent if he doesn't naturally. lol, he said why don't we tie a treat to a string, drag it around the floor, one of us hold him so he can see, then hide it and when it's hidden have him go find it. Would that work, once he understands find it?
People who want their dogs to follow a scent typically with leave a hot dog trail to get the puppy to keep his nose on the ground. This is similar to what you are doing. It doesn't make him understand "find", it makes him put his nose to the ground.
You could put a smelly treat, like a hot dog piece, under a piece of paper, plus a couple of pieces of paper near it. Tell him "find", he'll naturally go to the best smell and discover the hot dog under the paper. Once he's adept at that, put the hot dog treat in someone's pocket. What do you want him to do once he finds someone? Come back and get you? Sit?
You could put a smelly treat, like a hot dog piece, under a piece of paper, plus a couple of pieces of paper near it. Tell him "find", he'll naturally go to the best smell and discover the hot dog under the paper. Once he's adept at that, put the hot dog treat in someone's pocket. What do you want him to do once he finds someone? Come back and get you? Sit?
You could. I wouldn't use a treat though. I'd take a sock or a towel and soak it in broth or wet food and drag that. Make sure you drag it directly behind you, you want him to be associating the food smell with the smell of where you walked. Whoever is dragging it should hide with treats/toys for him at the end if it's people you want him to be finding. And you don't have to wait until he learns "find it". He can learn the command while doing the behavior.
I've never done trailing indoors, so I can't tell you what to expect, but I've heard of others starting the training indoors so it's doable.
I've never done trailing indoors, so I can't tell you what to expect, but I've heard of others starting the training indoors so it's doable.