NW720: Find It! - Lost Item Recovery

Week 3-1: Introduction to Match to Sample

We can teach the concept of Match to Sample by using our scent first. When we teach our dogs to find our scent, it becomes another ‘target odor’ along with others you might have taught your dog (essential oils, shed(antlers), kong, Spotted Lanternfly larvae). It's a consistent scent that's always available to us for training and one they will have been conditioned to locate.

The beauty of this is that the process will be seamless when starting with the familiarity of our scent and then will be generalized when we transfer it to a stranger scent.

When we think about cues, we could use a unique cue to find OUR scent and then another cue to find a stranger scent. To me, this can be a little unclear to our dogs and difficult to differentiate. What I find works better is to treat both OUR scent and a STRANGER scent as a Match to Sample type “cue” and use the same verbal search cue. I would pick something unique that you are not using for another scent activity.

We need to first look at how the rules apply for sampling a stranger scent in competition (Level II and above) before applying it to our process:

• A sample item will be placed near the start line in a box/basket to be used as the sample. The sample is always the same type of item as the hidden one.
• You have up to 20 seconds at the start line to familiarize your dog with the stranger scent.
• You must not remove, touch, handle the sample item from the warm up box. Wearing a pair of gloves (nitrile preferred) you can move the warm up box up to 24” from its original location for the dog to target.

For Level 1 where we are finding our scented personal item, we are allowed to have our dog sample another item with our scent before stepping into the search area. Extra time is NOT allotted to perform this step so it must be done prior to the start of your run. The sample item must also stay on your person and not touch the ground.

Both of these start routines allow us to prompt and cue our dogs to find “this scent”.

Steps for teaching Match to Sample:

Pre-req: Your dog must be successfully searching for and finding an article with your scent.

Step 1: Have a 2nd scented item ready in an open box or basket for sampling. The item should match the type of personal item placed out in the search area. Ideally have a place to put the box after your dog samples the scent (on a nearby stool/chair).

Step 2: Perform a few reps with your dog finding your scented item per the previous steps in class. This will pattern them to what you will be asking them to do.

Now we will add the Match to Sample step! You may want to have your dog sit or assume a stationary position to sample the scent before cuing to search. Play around with what works best.

Step 3: Before you start another rep of finding your scented item, have your dog stop to sample your other scented item.

Step 4: Cue your dog to search.