Harness the Power of the Nose! Part 2

Posted by Mike on February 1, 2010 under 1. Info Collection |

Now that you have determined the object you would like your dog to locate, we can begin to teach the dog to discriminate the scent of your specific object. For this tutorial, we will use a small stick that has been “primed” with a couple drops of vanilla scent. Remember that you don’t have to use a stick, but can use any object you desire. I recommend “priming” the object with a specific scent, if it doesn’t have one naturally. Over time we will decrease the amount of “priming” scent that we apply, but that will be addressed in a later tutorial.

Begin with the stick in your hand and the dog nearby. Hold out the stick and soon as the dog’s nose touches the stick ( which should happen rather quickly, to investigate the new object ), mark the moment with a “good!” or a clicker click ( if the dog is clicker trained ), and offer a small piece of food reward. Retract the stick and move a few feet away. Repeat the exercise in this manner five more times.
By this point, your dog is likely associating that touching the stick earns both praise and treat. Work on this a few times each day, then watch for part three of this tutorial.

Questions during the process? Please don’t hesitate to comment or send a message!
At the end of this tutorial series, we will be accepting video of your dog’s progress to be posted in our video section and possibly included in one of our online lessons.