Sniffydog — Train Your Dog’s Nose

No tracking today; it is raining.

 Now, this is not me wussing out; we took a walk.  I simply think that my inexperienced dog doesn’t need the confusion and discomfort of a soggy, smeary scent problem at this stage of his training.  Instead, we went to the (empty) dog park and Dustin trained his nose in wet smeary scent the fun way.

This leads to a logical next post: elements of a track or trail.

 Experienced dogs have been known to suddenly take off down a ditch, or stop dead at the edge of a field, or go completely blank at a roadside.  Quick — what happened?  In the first case, the trailing dog found scent blowing perpendicular to the original path, trapped in the lower path of the ditch.  In the second, the dog had not learned to go from grass to corn stubble — a track was always on grass, as far as he was concerned.  The third is the tricky one.  Most (though, as Sunny taught me, not all) dogs are “blinded” by petroleum derivatives, particularly asphalt.  This is something to learn about your dog, and something to work around.

It also helps to know exactly what can have an effect on scent and train through all of these obstacles, many of which don’t look like obstacles to us at all.  The main categories of scent changes follow.

 Temperature: shade to sun particularly.  UV radiation and heat can reduce the amount of scent available on a trail and change the crushed-vegetation response on a track.

Vegetation: height of grass changes, or lawn to scrub, or hayfield to beanfield, or… 

Altitude: even subtle changes like ditches or banks can reroute scent to places your tracklayer never went.  The tracking dog will be less flummoxed than the trailing dog, as the vegetation stays put, but the blowing body scent can still send him the wrong way.  A steep hill with a crosswind can send a trailing dog a long way from his goal, though he may be able to work his way back again.

Terrain: sidewalk crossings, street crossings, sandy lots or pits, and so on.  Some of these, such as the sand pit, you’re better off going around and picking up the scent on the other side.

This isn’t an exhaustive list, but it should give you an idea of what you’re asking of your dog.  As you work, it’s a good idea to make sure you add only one obstacle at a time — preferably after the dog is working solidly on straight lines and turns in moderate humidity and temperatures.  Taking a dog who is used to nice, even sod and nice tidy ninety-degree turns, first thing in the morning, and plonking him onto rugged pasture grass with a ditch to cross, a creek (running water drags scent with it) alongside, and a hill, in midafternoon, will probably confound him.

A call for stories: has your dog surprised you on a scent problem yet?