Towards the end of June I wrote a blog post containing some of the scent work training I had been doing with my dog Fibi. If you missed that post you can see it here >>> http://bit.ly/Fibi-scent
Since that time we have been flat out proofing her indication behavior and adding all sorts of variation into our training (including me lying down)! Consequently, I wanted to provide you with an update on some of this training – with 5 more short videos to share;
And as always, many thanks to my amazing teachers Sarah Owings & Helix Fairweather and the fantastic Cyber Scent community where I am learning all about the wonderful world of nose work!
Video 1 – Lying down
We are enjoying the process of adding as much variety to our indication behavior as possible. This is both with what I am doing and the containers the scent article is concealed within.
Note: this is potentially the first time I have lied down intentionally to cue a behavior lol … & you will see on the first one I couldn’t get up fast enough to reinforce Feebs!
Video 2 – Different rooms
We had a go at doing some indications in different rooms of our house and practising timing of our ‘eyes on” cue to the moment Fibi surged ahead of me helping to build her independence in the search.
Video 3 – Adding chatter to the background
Here we added in different words – whilst Fibi was targeting and additionally when she was on her way to the odour. She shifted her body weight slightly in response to some of the words but you can see her stay on target.
Video 4 – Leash pressure
In this video you can see me staring to add pressure to the leash whilst Fibi is targeting and Fibi hardly even flinches;
Video 5 – Discrimination training
Now we are working on discrimination and fibi learning it really is all about the scent. She is starting to quickly pass over the containers with no scent in them and indicate on the “hot one”.
We have one month left of our cyber scent journey before our next adventure! Fibi and I will be starting on our Karen Pryor professional dog training professional program and we couldn’t be more excited!
What about you? What training are you up to at the moment? I would love to hear about it, you can leave your comments at the bottom of this page.
Best Regards
Ryan Cartlidge
Animal Training Academy
Great job Team Fiji and Ryan!
Darn autocorrect! Great job Team Fibi and Ryan!!!
Love love LOVE this! So coo watching her work so intently. Scent work is one of my fave things to do and I often sneak it into training plans because it’s such a great thing for owners and their dogs to do together (while building confidence, optimism, creating a great enrichment activity and turning walks and/or rainy days into a much more fun experience! Thanks so much for sharing this and SO looking forward to Steve’s visit in October!!
Thanks so much for new NW thinking. I have taken a course in NW and we have missed many of the steps you show. Now I go back and fill the gaps.
Hello
I live in Switzerland and I have a mixed breed dog, who looks like your dog:-). They look so similar, they could be related:-)
I was really astonished, to see your dog.
Grisu is born in Switzerland and is now 8 years old.
Best regards!
Sonja
Doing Nosework too with my two hounds and agree with last comment I have a lot of holes I have to go back and fill! Thank you for your sharing, always interesting.
A question: are you moving the container with the same hand that you hand the treat?
Thanks for the question, Joanna. Thinking back to when I was doing this training – if my memory serves me correctly – I used different hands for the movement of the container and for handing the treat 🙂