June 6, 2023 • 10 mins
This episode of The Dog Professor Pawdcast has Robb discussing Scent Training with your Dog. It can be fun, get you both exercise and teach them some great skills. Robb goes over the steps to train them and the results you should see and expect.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Joining me in studio today is theDog Professor. It is the Dog Professor
podcast. Rob Bluffs from the EdgefieldAnimal Care Center in with me today and
Rob Today we're going to talk aboutscent training, which you said is something
fun you can do with your dogthis summer. Yeah, Usually if you
have a you know, we geta lot of questions about scent training with
(00:21):
your dog. You know, notto the extent of like search and rescue
training and that type of thing.But but actually people have a dog that
you know, these good at retrievinga ball or good at finding a ball
or things like that. Those arethose are dogs that have learned to use
their nose to solve problems, resultingin a good positive response in their minds.
(00:44):
So those tend to be good candidatesto really kind of stretch that out
a little bit and see if wecan't incorporate some scent training or some tracking
tracking type behaviors. So you gotto have a dog that likes to play
ball. They don't necessarily they haveto bring the ball back to you,
but they got to have the driveto go search for things. Or you
(01:06):
can also start a little bit ofscent training just with with young pups just
by using their food, you know, instead of filling up their bowl full
of food, you can you canhave them in the other room. Somebody
can hold them in the other roomand and or you hold them two feet
away from the chair or the tablethat's in the living room and you go
put down one of the pieces offood. The process is when they learn
(01:30):
this, they learn it through visualcues first. Then they incorporate the scent
queue with the visual cue with theresult of the problem, which means I
saw you put it there, Ican smell it, and I know if
I go get it, then Iget the reward of eating the tree or
(01:51):
getting petted by you or whatever.Okay. And that that that's the process
of thinking that a dog goes through, even up to the professional level with
police canine dogs and professional search andrescue dogs and everything. Police canine dog
loves to go find the person becausethey know at the end they're probably going
(02:14):
to be playing with their ball,right okay, because that they are so
ball driven that whatever it takes toget my ball, that's what I want
to do, okay. And youcan do that with dogs that have the
personality of whatever I can do toget you to touch me or tell me
I'm a good boy or a goodgirl or whatever. That's the type of
drive a dog has to have todo that. But the idea is we
(02:37):
make it easy, then we makeit tougher, just like everything else we've
talked about. So they take avisual cue. And the way we do
this when the dog is really balldriven or they have a certain toy that
they like, you know, theeasiest way to do it. If a
dog likes to retrieve their ball allday and bring it back to you so
you can throw it again, theeasiest thing to do there is you just
(02:58):
take that ball or that toy andit gets tossed into the little higher weeds
or under a tree or whatever.So the visual queue is no longer there.
So they have to resort on theother thing they've associated with the visual
que, which is the scent queue. And it's it's funny, how how
really the only scent on those yourdog's toy. Even dogs that haven't been
(03:22):
trained for scent work, nine outof ten can pick out where their toy
is if they can't necessarily find itjust from having it in their mouth or
having you handle it. That's thescent that they're tracking at that point in
time. So you can just takethat ball, you can toss that a
little bit into the into the weeds. You can start to build ball drive
(03:44):
or build the drive and the dogto go find that to be that dog
that kind of gets shot out thecannon like, man, I'm on the
track. This is what I've gotto do. I'm going to go find
it. By not just letting thembring you the ball back and dancing around
you and running around and waiting foryou to throw it again, we don't
throw it again until they sit okay. So that makes a dog have to
(04:06):
get calm and then build the anticipation. So then once they're set on the
track, they're that much more drivento go find it, a lot a
lot less likely to become distracted bythings on the path that they're finding.
So the idea with the scent workis when people talk about scent work and
(04:27):
their dog tracking and finding something,everybody visualizes the dogs they see in the
cartoons or on the movie where thedogs noses on the ground and they're tracking,
tracking the scent trail that's on theground. Well, the majority of
dogs out there do what we callair tracking, and what air tracking is
is you know, every time abreeze hits you, or every time you
(04:47):
walk, you will leave a scenttrail on the ground of skin particles and
other things that fall off your bodyas you go. But what most dogs
do is when when they catch abreeze that comes across whatever the target is
they're searching for, they can pickthat up in the breeze. Okay.
(05:09):
So when we practice for scent trainingand we're looking, we're putting something out
there that we want the dog togo fine or nine times out of ten,
what we try to do is wego into the wind. Okay.
So the steps if I want toteach my dog to find a person for
fun in my yard, okay,and I have a dog that's really driven
for their toy, the first stepis what I do is we throw the
(05:32):
ball. He goes, gets theball, brings the ball back. Next
thing is I employ a partner,okay, and my partner takes the ball.
I'm with the dog. My partnertakes the ball, runs off into
the yard ahead of the dog.The dog can see this take place the
whole time that my partner goes hideshalfway behind a tree, so the dog
(05:55):
can actually see them, But theexcitement of the person hiding there at the
tree kind of intrigues the dog,like what the hell are they doing?
Why? Why are they right?Why are they right there? So now
we've got one the drive that thatperson has their dog too, the curiosity
in the dog's mind as to whatthe heck is going on. So those
are the two drivers that will willget that dog to drive. So they'll
(06:17):
they'll visually go to the target atthat point, and when they get to
the person, the person gets allexcited, and then that person throws the
toy with them. So now whatwe've just done in the dog's mind is
we've associated a person scent with thetoy scent, even though it was easy
(06:38):
for him to find. Now thatstart that stuff starts clicking in a dog's
brain. Find find the person,they might have my ball, Find the
person, they might have a treat. Find the person. I'll get some
praise whatever it is. So nowwe've just taught them to start searching for
a particular scent. In that case, we do it again, do it.
(07:00):
The whole day's workout is just thatperson going out and halfway hiding and
that type of thing. Next day, person goes out and completely hides in
visual range, probably in the samegeneral areas UM. But we're we're we've
laid down a scent trail for thatdog to follow, so they know kind
of in the idea that it's thatit's out there in that direction. And
(07:24):
then the excitement level UM continues.So then the day after that, UM,
we go through the same process,kind of the same hiding spots,
UM, same general vicinity UM.But there's no ball this time, there's
just the person. So now thedog is strictly going on the scent of
the person. Each time we sendthem after the person, we're giving them
(07:47):
a certain command like you know,where's Bob or where's or go find go
find something or whatever, but it'sthe same command, so they know they're
searching, they're looking for something atthat point in time, So it starts
to become a game. And thenwhen then I start as the handler,
start following them as they're on thetrack to that target. So then I'm
(08:09):
the one the person is the praisewhen they get there, and I'm the
one with the praise at that pointin time. So a dog starts to
find the person just for the funof finding the person. And that's basically
the process that search and rescue trainingstarts out. As now, once the
process is figured out, there's alot of other things you have to take
(08:31):
into account, like we talked abouton the last episode about dealing with distractions
throughout the thing so that your dogcan continue to to focus on what they're
going to go get right. Butbasically, when you see a dog that's
trained to find people, a dogthat's trained to find drugs, a dog
that's trained to find anything, thoseare the steps that occur when we train
(08:56):
them to find that. And itstarts out, like I said, as
simplest, playing height and seek withyour puppy with the pieces of food around
the house to start to build thatlittle drive in them as they go.
How fun is that and constructive obviously, right, Yeah, not only fun
but constructive, and it can reallybuild a lot onto that. So if
(09:18):
somebody's looking to do some training andthey want to learn a little bit more
about those types of things and spendingmore time with their pet doing good productive
things, they can schedule training withyou guys. The idea The Edgefield Animal
Care Center here in Central Ohio.We are a family business, a family
pet business. We've been in thisfor my dad's benefitterant for as long as
(09:39):
my dad's been a veterinarian doctor Jack, so it's over fifty years. And
we specialize in just about everything yourpet needs of our veterinary hospital, boarding,
grooming, and obviously the training aspectof things. So if you're interested
in finding out about that information,scheduling an evaluation with our trainer, getting
(10:01):
more information if you're planning on gettinga dog, what kind of dog you
should get with your family, soforth, and so on. Easiest place
to find out all about us,all about the Dog Professor is our website,
Edgefield Animalcare dot com. Go onthere. You'll get all the information
you need Edgefield Animalcare dot com somegreat stuff from the Dog Professor. If
you're just finding this podcast, TheDog Professor Podcast, it's out there everywhere.
(10:26):
Make sure you hit follow so youget a notification when we post a
new one. Rob is unbelievable,so check them all out. Over one
hundred episodes of The Dog Professor podcastand they're pretty evergreen. They've all got
some great tips for you throughout forthe last several years
Joining me in studio today is theDog Professor. It is the Dog Professor
podcast. Rob Bluffs from the EdgefieldAnimal Care Center in with me today and
Rob Today we're going to talk aboutscent training, which you said is something
fun you can do with your dogthis summer. Yeah, Usually if you
have a you know, we geta lot of questions about scent training with
(00:21):
your dog. You know, notto the extent of like search and rescue
training and that type of thing.But but actually people have a dog that
you know, these good at retrievinga ball or good at finding a ball
or things like that. Those arethose are dogs that have learned to use
their nose to solve problems, resultingin a good positive response in their minds.
(00:44):
So those tend to be good candidatesto really kind of stretch that out
a little bit and see if wecan't incorporate some scent training or some tracking
tracking type behaviors. So you gotto have a dog that likes to play
ball. They don't necessarily they haveto bring the ball back to you,
but they got to have the driveto go search for things. Or you
(01:06):
can also start a little bit ofscent training just with with young pups just
by using their food, you know, instead of filling up their bowl full
of food, you can you canhave them in the other room. Somebody
can hold them in the other roomand and or you hold them two feet
away from the chair or the tablethat's in the living room and you go
put down one of the pieces offood. The process is when they learn
(01:30):
this, they learn it through visualcues first. Then they incorporate the scent
queue with the visual cue with theresult of the problem, which means I
saw you put it there, Ican smell it, and I know if
I go get it, then Iget the reward of eating the tree or
(01:51):
getting petted by you or whatever.Okay. And that that that's the process
of thinking that a dog goes through, even up to the professional level with
police canine dogs and professional search andrescue dogs and everything. Police canine dog
loves to go find the person becausethey know at the end they're probably going
(02:14):
to be playing with their ball,right okay, because that they are so
ball driven that whatever it takes toget my ball, that's what I want
to do, okay. And youcan do that with dogs that have the
personality of whatever I can do toget you to touch me or tell me
I'm a good boy or a goodgirl or whatever. That's the type of
drive a dog has to have todo that. But the idea is we
(02:37):
make it easy, then we makeit tougher, just like everything else we've
talked about. So they take avisual cue. And the way we do
this when the dog is really balldriven or they have a certain toy that
they like, you know, theeasiest way to do it. If a
dog likes to retrieve their ball allday and bring it back to you so
you can throw it again, theeasiest thing to do there is you just
(02:58):
take that ball or that toy andit gets tossed into the little higher weeds
or under a tree or whatever.So the visual queue is no longer there.
So they have to resort on theother thing they've associated with the visual
que, which is the scent queue. And it's it's funny, how how
really the only scent on those yourdog's toy. Even dogs that haven't been
(03:22):
trained for scent work, nine outof ten can pick out where their toy
is if they can't necessarily find itjust from having it in their mouth or
having you handle it. That's thescent that they're tracking at that point in
time. So you can just takethat ball, you can toss that a
little bit into the into the weeds. You can start to build ball drive
(03:44):
or build the drive and the dogto go find that to be that dog
that kind of gets shot out thecannon like, man, I'm on the
track. This is what I've gotto do. I'm going to go find
it. By not just letting thembring you the ball back and dancing around
you and running around and waiting foryou to throw it again, we don't
throw it again until they sit okay. So that makes a dog have to
(04:06):
get calm and then build the anticipation. So then once they're set on the
track, they're that much more drivento go find it, a lot a
lot less likely to become distracted bythings on the path that they're finding.
So the idea with the scent workis when people talk about scent work and
(04:27):
their dog tracking and finding something,everybody visualizes the dogs they see in the
cartoons or on the movie where thedogs noses on the ground and they're tracking,
tracking the scent trail that's on theground. Well, the majority of
dogs out there do what we callair tracking, and what air tracking is
is you know, every time abreeze hits you, or every time you
(04:47):
walk, you will leave a scenttrail on the ground of skin particles and
other things that fall off your bodyas you go. But what most dogs
do is when when they catch abreeze that comes across whatever the target is
they're searching for, they can pickthat up in the breeze. Okay.
(05:09):
So when we practice for scent trainingand we're looking, we're putting something out
there that we want the dog togo fine or nine times out of ten,
what we try to do is wego into the wind. Okay.
So the steps if I want toteach my dog to find a person for
fun in my yard, okay,and I have a dog that's really driven
for their toy, the first stepis what I do is we throw the
(05:32):
ball. He goes, gets theball, brings the ball back. Next
thing is I employ a partner,okay, and my partner takes the ball.
I'm with the dog. My partnertakes the ball, runs off into
the yard ahead of the dog.The dog can see this take place the
whole time that my partner goes hideshalfway behind a tree, so the dog
(05:55):
can actually see them, But theexcitement of the person hiding there at the
tree kind of intrigues the dog,like what the hell are they doing?
Why? Why are they right?Why are they right there? So now
we've got one the drive that thatperson has their dog too, the curiosity
in the dog's mind as to whatthe heck is going on. So those
are the two drivers that will willget that dog to drive. So they'll
(06:17):
they'll visually go to the target atthat point, and when they get to
the person, the person gets allexcited, and then that person throws the
toy with them. So now whatwe've just done in the dog's mind is
we've associated a person scent with thetoy scent, even though it was easy
(06:38):
for him to find. Now thatstart that stuff starts clicking in a dog's
brain. Find find the person,they might have my ball, Find the
person, they might have a treat. Find the person. I'll get some
praise whatever it is. So nowwe've just taught them to start searching for
a particular scent. In that case, we do it again, do it.
(07:00):
The whole day's workout is just thatperson going out and halfway hiding and
that type of thing. Next day, person goes out and completely hides in
visual range, probably in the samegeneral areas UM. But we're we're we've
laid down a scent trail for thatdog to follow, so they know kind
of in the idea that it's thatit's out there in that direction. And
(07:24):
then the excitement level UM continues.So then the day after that, UM,
we go through the same process,kind of the same hiding spots,
UM, same general vicinity UM.But there's no ball this time, there's
just the person. So now thedog is strictly going on the scent of
the person. Each time we sendthem after the person, we're giving them
(07:47):
a certain command like you know,where's Bob or where's or go find go
find something or whatever, but it'sthe same command, so they know they're
searching, they're looking for something atthat point in time, So it starts
to become a game. And thenwhen then I start as the handler,
start following them as they're on thetrack to that target. So then I'm
(08:09):
the one the person is the praisewhen they get there, and I'm the
one with the praise at that pointin time. So a dog starts to
find the person just for the funof finding the person. And that's basically
the process that search and rescue trainingstarts out. As now, once the
process is figured out, there's alot of other things you have to take
(08:31):
into account, like we talked abouton the last episode about dealing with distractions
throughout the thing so that your dogcan continue to to focus on what they're
going to go get right. Butbasically, when you see a dog that's
trained to find people, a dogthat's trained to find drugs, a dog
that's trained to find anything, thoseare the steps that occur when we train
(08:56):
them to find that. And itstarts out, like I said, as
simplest, playing height and seek withyour puppy with the pieces of food around
the house to start to build thatlittle drive in them as they go.
How fun is that and constructive obviously, right, Yeah, not only fun
but constructive, and it can reallybuild a lot onto that. So if
(09:18):
somebody's looking to do some training andthey want to learn a little bit more
about those types of things and spendingmore time with their pet doing good productive
things, they can schedule training withyou guys. The idea The Edgefield Animal
Care Center here in Central Ohio.We are a family business, a family
pet business. We've been in thisfor my dad's benefitterant for as long as
(09:39):
my dad's been a veterinarian doctor Jack, so it's over fifty years. And
we specialize in just about everything yourpet needs of our veterinary hospital, boarding,
grooming, and obviously the training aspectof things. So if you're interested
in finding out about that information,scheduling an evaluation with our trainer, getting
(10:01):
more information if you're planning on gettinga dog, what kind of dog you
should get with your family, soforth, and so on. Easiest place
to find out all about us,all about the Dog Professor is our website,
Edgefield Animalcare dot com. Go onthere. You'll get all the information
you need Edgefield Animalcare dot com somegreat stuff from the Dog Professor. If
you're just finding this podcast, TheDog Professor Podcast, it's out there everywhere.
(10:26):
Make sure you hit follow so youget a notification when we post a
new one. Rob is unbelievable,so check them all out. Over one
hundred episodes of The Dog Professor podcastand they're pretty evergreen. They've all got
some great tips for you throughout forthe last several years
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