In the recent online Nosework Conference, “Know the Nose”, hosted by FDSA, as a part of the upper level competition panel I was asked how my training has changed from my first Nosework dog. My answer was that with my first dog, I didn’t know what the destination looked like and all I had to go on were incremental goals of working to the next level. Now, I train for the qualities that I want to build in my dog. When I start that new dog I am thinking about what I need to do to turn that dog into my next Summit dog (or how to help them fulfill their potential regardless of what that looks like). I train for Excellence and Fluency. This course is focused on QUALITY.
This course will cover a different type of “Quality” every week that I find to be critical in the development of an incredible Nosework star. These are also Qualities that I work on when trying to build and fine tune my dogs at the Elite and Summit levels. Our work and setups that week will be focused on that “Quality”. You will also have concept lectures that cover things like how to effectively increase the challenge level, how to keep your dog “in balance”, training vs trial prep, and much more.
(Although I DO utilize these concepts very early in my training, working spots for this class will get the most benefit if already working at the Master/NW3 level and up).
The Qualities that we will cover in this class include:
Clarity in Source
Desire and Drive for Source
It’s all about the PACE
Bulletproof Thresholds
Building Expectation for Close Proximity
Using Thermals
Just some of the Concept Lectures that will be sprinkled throughout this class include:
Building hide commitment
Raising criteria successfully
Figuring out WHAT to work on
Assessing a search area
Finding the balance between Hunt - Find - Alert
Training for fluency vs prepping for a trial
Large areas vs setting puzzles
This class is suitable for dogs who are CONFIDENTLY working and training in novel locations and who have been for some time. This class is NOT for the brand new dog who has just recently started searching away from home. This is a class that builds the QUALITY of searching…. Which the the “How Good”…. This class is suitable for up and coming and for advanced dogs who need a boost from “OK” to “Incredible”.
Teaching Approach
Each week a series of lectures will be released (usually 3 to 5). The lectures will be a combination of supporting theory and setup examples. Some self reflection will be needed in order to apply the concepts to the learner's situation. The concept lecture will be longer than the weekly lectures that contain the homework. The weekly homework will not be prescriptive and the learner will need to adapt the examples to something suitable for their situation.
Stacy Barnett is a top nosework competitor and trainer, with many Summit Level titles in the National Association of Canine Scent Work (NACSW), (Judd SMTx3, Brava SMTx5, Powder SMTx3). She is also a Wilderness SAR K9 handler with her certified dog, K9 Prize. Stacy has been a faculty member at FDSA since 2015 (Click here for full bio and to view Stacy's upcoming courses)
Exercises and lectures this week will help the dog to work all the way to source in both containers and when hunting when there might be confusing air flow. These exercises are targeted at reducing or eliminating fringe responses. We will utilize fans and distractions to work on Discrimination.
Week 2: Desire and Drive for Source
Exercises and lectures this week will utilize "3D" searching so that the dog builds "TRY" into their work. We will improve our reward events and will get the dog engaging their bodies so that we turbocharge their engagement with the hunt. Climbing and Deep Accessible hides will be heavily utilized this week.
Week 3: It's all about the PACE
Building towards large area searches by utilizing unproductive areas will be basis of the exercises and lectures this week. PACE is a concept of how to clear areas in rhythm. We will work on building the dog's comfort in areas without odor and will work on keeping the handler from lingering too long or rushing through an area. This week is all about the give and take between the dog and the handler.
Week 4: Bulletproof Thresholds
If you ever want to work the really big areas, you NEED good threshold work. You might be able to get along initially by always rechecking your thresholds, however the time will come when you just can't... this week is focused on utilizing the dog's sensitivity to patterns to build a threshold hide capability. And YES this works for VERY high drive dogs too who like to blast into the search area!
Week 5: Building Expectation for Close Proximity
This week is about building expectation for close proximity using the approach I develped for teaching close proximity hides. Although this DOES create a dog with some killer converging odor skills, the real intent is to reduce the time it takes for the dog to start searching again once you have stopped the reward sequence. We don't want a dog getting a cookie and then blasting off. We want a dog to expect that there COULD be another hide nearby. This week's exercises will start to develop this skill.
Week 6: Using Thermals
Dogs need to learn their Scent Theory too. Although this takes a dog's career to really develop, working a dog through thermal hides is definitely a part of the formula! This week will be able Dog Driven searching focused on Problem Solving!
This class is suitable for dogs who are CONFIDENTLY working and training in novel locations and who have been for some time. This class is NOT for the brand new dog who has just recently started searching away from home. This is a class that builds the QUALITY of searching…. Which the the “How Good”…. This class is suitable for up and coming and for advanced dogs who need a boost from “OK” to “Incredible”.
Working spots for this class will get the most benefit if already working at the Master/NW3 level and up.
Week 1 will include containers. Students will need clean Literature Mailer style cardboard boxes (ORT Boxes) as well as a variety of containers.
Students will also need a manner to keep distractions from being consumed (such as a suet cage).
Having Clarity in Source means that your dog not only understands HOW to get to source but also understands what the source actually IS…. And when the source is not readily accessible, the dog will continue to work. THAT is a much taller order than most handlers realize!
As humans, we might think that the concept of “Source” is easy for the dog to understand. We think of it as a tin with a couple of Qtips inside. I mean how hard can that be? In reality though we need to realize that what we visually SEE as a “source” can be a different experience altogether for the dog.
Let’s first learn a little about “Source” ourselves!
These are some complications of Source in Nosework applications:
The Qtips may be in tins, straws, tubes, and other assorted vessels. These vessels vary in their chemical makeup.
The vessel has its own odor which can either mingle with or actually CHANGE the odor of the essential oil
The essential oils that we are searching for are MIXTURES. By definition they cannot be “pure” and every batch of essential oil will vary slightly.
The hide may or may not be positioned so that the dog can physically touch in. In fact, in trials, the judges or certifying officials may try to position the hide so that the dog CANNOT physically touch it in order to maintain search integrity (even if the hide is “accessible”).
Hides may be completely inaccessible… in the case of Containers, not only is the hide actually inaccessible, but the scent of the container will react in the same way as your scent vessel.
All of this happens in addition to the forces of temperature and pressure and in the presence (or lack thereof) of humidity.
Oh! And because we also compete on the same hides at other teams, our dogs might alert at locations where another dog false alerted. Contrary to popular belief, this is NOT due to dog drool. It’s due to the scent of the dopamine drop that the mistaken dog experienced believing that a reward was coming!
Basically, the dog is an incredible scenting machine!
In this week’s lessons, we will explore how to build Clarity in Source and will practice setups that help our dogs to improve and figure it out. We will work on helping the dog to discriminate and understand source.
A little about the effects of how you store and place your hides…
As handlers, hopefully you have placed hides in a variety of scent vessels rather than always placing the hide in a tin. This is essential so that the dog understands how to generalize their understanding of the variability of the odor.
The truth is that that essential oils are mixtures and the perception of these odors may vary depending on the vessel material and environmental contaminants. For instance, how you store or transport your odor will affect the odor of the Q-tip. Also, the actual Q-tip itself can affect the odor. Q-tips that are white, 100% cotton with a cardboard applicator may smell differently the black Q-tips (used in competition). Conversely, there has been a trend that further increases variability by using a colored swab or a swab with a colored plastic stick. What if the stick is made of bamboo? All of these things will affect the odor profile in part because the bulk of the training aid absorbs the odor of the essential oil.
Keep in mind that if you transport or store your odor in any sort of plastic, the smell of the plastic will absorb onto your hide. The amount and type of odor profile coming off the plastic will vary on the type. And then of course, the smell of the plastic will change when exposed to the odor coming from your hide! Have you ever tried to clean a plastic container after microwaving something in it containing tomato sauce?
What about that Dog Drool on cold containers or in the search area?
Dogs false alerting on dog drool is an urban myth! When a dog false alerts in a location where a previous dog false alerted, this is due to dopamine from the first dog, NOT due to the drool itself.
This is a successful search that Why did during a NW3. He was a little hot, tired, and stressed so his energy was a little low for this search…. However he did very successfully identify the only correct hot box. However, there is a ton of drool on most of the containers. He was never in danger of alerting on the drool. It might smell interesting, however as long as I didn’t pressure him as a handler, he is likely to only alert on target odor.
However, it is VERY true that when one dog false alerts in a trial, it’s common for the next dogs to alert in the very same spot.
When a dog anticipates reward, the dog will experience a flood of dopamine. This flood of dopamine will make the dog smell a little differently to another dog who comes from the search area later. Dogs will experience dopamine when they are at the correct hide location and they will also experience when they are NOT in the correct location but they think they are! This means that the next dog, who is used to searching after other dogs, may use this information and infer that the dog who false alerted was correct!
(The theory is actually that after the dog believes that the activity will produce reward, the dog is already producing dopamine. This means that your dog likely experiences the feeling on the start line. When the dog "false alerts", the dog smell plus the dopamine will remain for the next dog to detect.)
Dogs hit on dopamine because that scent has become a part of the odor picture when they are used to searching and alerting in the same spots as other dogs. If your dog hits on a dopamine spot, it's because your dog doesn't have clarity for source.
Here’s an experiment that you can use to increase your dog’s understanding and discrimination of source if you have a second dog.
I took out a mat (pile of towels would also work) that was made of fabric. In this case, fleece holds odor easily. I did obedience type tricks with Why. There was NO TARGET ODOR set in the area.
Then I set a hide in the same room, leaving the mat in place and ran Brava. She found the only hide in the room within seconds of entering. I let her search for another 2:00 looking for a second hide (that wasn’t there). She did not give the mat any notice! Good girl!! This is essentially what we do when we hang out in a search area too long. (Actually for demo purposes, I continued the search for a whole 4:00…. WAY too long but it definitely showed me that Brava understands source!)
Then I did a step in the demo that I DO NOT want you to do…. I presented the mat to Brava and she gave me Alert behavior. I did this just for demo purposes to prove a point. This is what happens when you insist on re-presenting an area that you think might have a hide. Your dog MIGHT have sniffed a “dopamine area”. It’s very easy to push a dog into a false alert by presenting the area to the dog.
In this case, I let her return to the hide for a reward. If you do this experiment and your dog false alerts, it means that you need to do the exercise more but reduce the amount of unproductive searching time after they find the actual hide. It’s important that your dog is successful in this exercise!
If you train with other people, it’s important to change up the run order frequently. You WANT your dog searching after other dogs! If you have the opportunity to train with someone who searches for a different type of odor, that is a great opportunity too! For example, if a friend trains handler discrimination, run their dog on handler scent and then set a hide and run your dog in the same search area! I had a super opportunity to search my Nosework dogs in areas with both narcotic and explosive odors when visiting my friend who was running her own odors. It was a unique and powerful experience!
The rest of this week, we are going to do setups that will help our dog understand was SOURCE IS.
A sample of what prior students have said about this course ...
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Instructor: Stacy Barnett
