Intimated by learning scent articles?! This class will guide you step by step with zero experience required! Scent articles looks super impressive but is a relatively easy skill for the dogs to learn!
And perfect for really short training sessions indoors for when the weather sucks or for when you're short on time!
We will discuss using a food based method to kick start the dogs' learning that it is a scent based activity and how to quickly fade the food as a prompt. Common problems in teaching articles will be discussed, from freezing over the pile to grabbing the first one they come across. If your dog has already started scent articles using a different method we can keep working with it, however I will be unable to problem-solve other methods and we may need to quickly go back to step 1.
While a retrieve will eventually be needed for the full scent article exercise, it is not necessary to begin this class. We will start training with a flat article so we can separate out the act of scenting from the act of retrieving and prevent common "grabbing" issues.
The full progression to scent article training from step 1 to the full formal exercise with a retrieve will be discussed in the lectures.
Here is team Sue and Brinkley showing their progression from this class!
Teaching Approach
Lectures are released at the start of each week, however this is a front loaded class. Meaning that almost all lectures will be released by week 4 (or sooner if needed) to allow for students who have already strated to progress at their pace. Students new to scent articles will not be able to complete all the lectures in just 6 weeks!
The lectures are broken down by each skill, often in multiple parts. I have written objectives and then written instructions for each step followed by multiple video examples for each step. The videos are usually between 30sec to 2min long and are taken from training sessions of a variety of dogs. I rarely use voiceover in videos, but if it is added I have added/edited subtitles. At the end of each lecture is a homework summary with the steps quickly summarized in order.
Several videos will depict training being done with the handler sitting on the ground. These steps can be modified to have the handler sitting in a chair, and may also be modified to have the dog at a higher level such on a bed. You will need to be able to reach down and feed on top of the article in the early steps and will need to be able to do so quickly.
Laura Waudby (she/they) trains and competes in obedience, rally, and agility. She was halfway to her OTCH with her UDX corgi, Lance, before his uexpected early retirement. She also has championship titles in USDAA and UKI. By day...(Click here for full bio and to view Laura's upcoming courses)
Lectures are released at the start of each week, however this is a front loaded class. Meaning that almost all lectures will be released by week 4 to allow for students who have already started to progress at their pace. Students new to scent articles will not be able to complete all the lectures in just 6 weeks!
The exact timeline of when lectures will be released will depend on the gold students.
This is a general outline of the topics in the lectures, with most topics having multiple lectures devoted to it!
-Overview of Common Methods
- Basics of a Food Based Method: 7 steps
- How to reward, how to handle mistakes
- How to switch to a retrieve alert from a nose touch alert
- How to introduce new materials for the dog to scent
- Problem Solving- Franticness and Grabbing
- Problem Solving- Looking for Help
- Multiple games to build confidence and add challenges
- Formality: Working on Added distance, turns to the pile, the final picture
Dog of all levels are invited to train! Even puppies can learn how to find our scent! A retrieve is not a requirement and we will talk about training a duration nose touch as an indication.
Approximate Time Devotion: This is a single topic class with not much time needed. However consistent practice is crucial for scent articles more so than with other behaviors. To make the most progress you should be able to have 1-2x sessions at least 4 days a week. Each session should be from 1min to 3min in length.
Equipment needed:
Smearable food will be used in the beginning such as canned dog food/baby food, cream cheese, butter, cheeze whiz. I typically use hydrated honest kitchen simply because I already have it for part of my dog's meals.
Ideally, all students will be prepared with 6 identical "flat' items such as canning lids or metal electrical plates (great for "enthusiastic" dogs or dogs retrieve obsessed).
As we introduce new types of materials you will again want to start with flat items. Wooden coasters are great! For leather people will cut up old leather belts or order leather coasters! I recommend getting 6-8 of each new material.
Empty Altoids tins or similar small metal containers (search Amazon!) may also be recommended for some dogs struggling with fading the food help.
For dogs who progress to adding in a retrieve in later weeks, any identical items can be used that are retrievable. They do not need to be traditional scent article dumbbells. Many dogs prefer starting out with wide mouth canning rings for metal.
Leather bracelets and leather baby shoes are also common (check out ebay for a bunch of cheap leather baby shoe options with various animal prints on them!).
And wooden clothes pins or bangle bracelets are also cheap alternatives to official wooden dumbbells.
This lecture is on teaching your dog a duration touch to a lid, aka a sticky target, with their nose or chin. The dog will move to push their nose/chin into a target held in your hand and then on the ground and will hold duration until the marker cue.
Before going on to this lecture, please make sure you have taught your dog a sticky target to your hand or to the ground, discussed in the previous lecture.
Goal of the Exercise
This is part two in the pre-scentwork lectures for teaching an indication behavior. At this point, your dog should already understand either a chin rest and/or a duration nose press to your hand. Now we are going to expand that and teach your dog to offer that sticky target behavior of freezing to an object such as a lid.
This freezing of their nose or chin to a lid will eventually be the dog's indication when they find the correct scent article. While a retrieve of the correct article will eventually be the end goal, it is strongly recommended that all dogs also have this non-retrieve type of indication as an option when learning or for troubleshooting.
The goal for a sticky target will be 1.5-2 seconds of freezing with either their nose pointed on the lid or their chin resting on it. It doesn't matter whether the dog does this in a stand position, a bow position, or even a full down. (In order to the chin rest, the dog will have to be in either the bow or the down!)
OR
Jump to the bottom of the lecture for an alternative indication of the dog lying down without a chin rest.
Materials Needed
A flat lid. Does not need to be metal, leather or wood at this stage. For dogs obsessed with retrieving, a ceramic tile or heavy electrical plate works well once you get to the stage where your target is on the floor.
Here is a link to a metal electrical plate sold at Home Depot and other hardware stores for less than $1 each.
Hold the target in your hand and mark/reward when your dog sniffs it. If your dog tries to bite it that’s fine. Just try and mark early before your dog makes physical contact until the dog stops opening his mouth.
With Splash I held it in the palm of my hand since he knew a chin rest. This allowed me to get duration quickly.
If your dog already has a duration nose touch to your hand, it's the same process but hold the target more vertically. (see the video with Arlo in the next section for an example)
Lower Target to Floor
Once your dog knows to hold their nose to the target in your hand, start to lower your target slowly until you can leave it on the ground.
Here is Splash's second session with the target being moved to the ground. You can see he gets stuck staring at me sometimes and half way through we do some reps with the target in my hand again.
Arlo is working on this with a duration nose touch instead of a chin rest. I start the target up high and gradually start lowering it, occasionally throwing in easier "chin rest" reps since the nose press isn't super solid yet. Because my goal is a nose touch I want to keep him in a stand as I start to lower the target. I try to move the target away form him if he downs.
With Wren, she was still learning a chin rest to my hand when I decided to jump to teaching it to a target. You don't NEED a chin rest to your hand in order to do a chin rest to a target!! Here is her second or third lesson in shaping head dips to the target. Most clicks are for head dips, not real chin rests!
Here Ginny was working on the target in my low hand to being set on the floor. She gets this quickly so I start to jump to the next stage (adding motion) the last few reps!;
Once it's on the floor, I like to reward ON the target to reinforce the idea that the target itself is important! Rewarding on the lid will also be important as we work on the dog remaining at the target to wait for your reward to come to them.
Adding Motion Before Sticky Target
Since the ultimate goal when working with the scent articles will be for your dog to alert to a lid after some walking around and sniffing, we need to work on the dog being able to go from moving to doing their sticky target. This also works on the dog actually looking for the target and really aiming versus just automatically pressing their nose/chin to the ground directly in front of them.
After your dog does a sticky target, move the lid a few inches to the side. At first you might want to move it so little that all the dog has to do is turn their head to be able to touch it versus having to get up and walk.
If that goes well, try moving the target further away.
Or even toss a reset cookie so that the dog has to look for the target as they return from their cookie toss.
Here Zumi practices this skill. She's already had practice with this so it was more of a review.
Splash is in the earlier stages. Here he works on just moving slightly to find the target. It goes pretty well but clearly at the end he shows me that he his more familiar with moving to his right to find it versus to his left!
And here a little bit later I work on it again and try to teach him to find it even if it's behind him. Splash really wants to come directly in front of me to offer a chin rest to the floor versus looking for a target.
Loot is working on this stage of doing the down+chin rest out of motion. He seems to nose target well but his offered down isn't quite there. I frequently reward the nose touch and then use the reward to lure the down.
The goal of these exercises is to teach your dog a non-retrieve indication. You don't need to have a perfect sticky target! Ideally, you will have a solid two seconds of duration, but even repeated bobbing of the head will be just fine! A down alert without a touch is fine too! The most important piece is the dog learning to REMAIN at a target and at least offering head dips.
If you run into problems teaching this, do not panic! I will be with you to help! We can also switch to an alternative method if needed, but the more tools you have in your bag the easier problem solving will be.
Alternative Alert - Down at Target
If you don't want to teach a chin rest, that's ok! An alternative alert can be lying down at the target.
First mark any interest in your dog's head lowering at a target on the floor. If your dog is very pawy, warmup with just dropping treats on the target! You can then mark as the dog is eating as their head is likely low!
Start to mark the head dip and then use the reward to quickly lure a foldback down at the target. The dog is not yet offering the down. You're making it happen!
Wait for the dog to get to the target and then offer the down! You can do this with very little motion at first by handing your dog a cookie so they have to sit or stand in order to eat it, and then need to offer that down at the target to get another cookie. Gradually add in the motion game listed in the section above.
Here is Wren demonstrating steps 1 and 2.
Final Notes!
The goal of these exercises is to teach your dog a non-retrieve indication. You don't need to have a perfect sticky target! Ideally, you will have a solid 2 seconds of duration, but even repeated bobbing of the head will be just fine! The most important piece is the dog learning to REMAIN at a target and at least offering head dips.
If you're doing a chin rest, keep in mind that your dog will either need to this from a bow OR a down. Either option is fine!!!
If you run into problems teaching this, do not panic! We can also switch to an alternative method if needed, but the more tools you have in your bag the easier problem solving will be.
1. Get a chin rest or sticky target of some type to a target held in your hand.
2. Lower your hand/target to the floor until the target can be on the floor and your dog does the chin rest/sticky target. Note that if you have a chin rest your dog will likely need to be lying down or in a bow position.
3. Add motion. From a short cookie toss, can your dog find the target and do his sticky target?
Or! Look at the alternative alert (down at the target) steps!
A sampling of what prior students have said about this course ...
AWESOME ! Incredible individualized attention for all the Gold students, regardless of their level of training prior to starting. We made HUGE progress over 6 weeks and have the tools to continue our training on our own and continue our success. A MUST for anyone planning on doing advanced obedience work that involves scent discrimination articles.
This course is exactly what it describes. Whether you have had experience teaching scent articles or not, Laura will analyze where you are and offer different solutions to make you progress. The lectures as well as the supporting videos are clear and pave a solid road to making the dog understand what the game is about and the trainer develop skills to support the dog. In six weeks, we went from no idea what an indication was to an indication with no food with an average 80% success rate. I am very glad I had the opportunity to take this class at Gold. This is not cookie cutter class ; it is truly individualized to each team's needs. Nathalie V.
This was an outstanding class to learn articles if you had never started or fix a problem if you'd already started. Laura is a talented instructor with a depth of knowledge to guide the dog and handler to success. The course was tailored so that we have good guidance on how to continue progressing after the session is over. I wouldn't hesitate to take another class from Laura. Deb A.
Laura provides a step-by-step method for scent discrimination that is guaranteed to be successful, even for the most sensitive dog. She is quick to understand the nuances of each team and provide individualized instruction. It's all about keeping it fun and improving the dog's confidence. Wonderful course - I was thrilled with the progress we made in six weeks. ~ Jill Stoller
I'm so impressed by this course and by the speed at which my dog picked up this method of training. We went from never having done any scentwork at all, (handler or dog) to getting a reliable nose-touch with duration on the correct article without any food on it (ever, now) and this has just enabled us to pass our TEAM1 and TEAM1+ titles :) (The scentwork was the only thing I had absolutely no idea how to train, as I don't come from an obedience background!) Thanks Laura!
This was a great class. Laura had great knowledge and read the dogs very well. Her suggestions were spot on to keep the dog and handler on the right track to success.
This class has helped me find the holes in my articles training. Laura is an amazing teacher! She helped me and my dog return to the very beginning of learning to scent discrimination. Laura took us back to ground zero, and work our way through the process in a calming controlled manner. My dog and I thank he for this every time we work.
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Instructor: Laura Waudby
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