At the end of the last scent article post, I had eliminated
the food from the cookie tins. I tried a more formal test. I lined up all four cookie tins with the
scented tin in position one. I sent the dog to find the scented tin. Next try,
I put the scented tin in position 2. I
moved the line on tins further down the driveway so that the unscented tin in
position one was not sitting where the scented tin had been. Next try, the scented tin was in position 3
and lastly in position 4.
Both dogs correctly identified the scented tin on the first
try, were more tentative on the second, and seemed confused on the third and
fourth. I was scenting the scented tin
by rubbing my hands all over it and rescenting for all tests. It dawned on me that, even though I was
shifting my line of tins further down the driveway each time, there might be so
much scent wafting around from the scented tin, that they were confused.
The next day, I did not rub the scented tin on the outside.
I rubbed the inside of the tin only and handled the articles. I handled the scented tin from the outside,
but only enough to close the lid and put the tin in place. I did only one rep
with each dog. Both found the scented tin without difficulty. I concluded that I should be much more
careful about not overscenting the scented articles. I also thought I should be
more careful to not scent the unscented articles. I was handling the scented articles
with baggies over my hands, but baggies are somewhat porous. I know many good
trainers say their dog uses “hot” scent and that they don’t worry about briefly
touching the unscented articles. But, I think my dogs both have a very good
sense of smell and drifting odor or lightly scented “unscented” articles
confuses them.
I felt, at this point, that the dogs more or less had the
idea of looking for my scent. It was
time to move to the tie-down board. The
local hardware store didn’t have a peg board, but they did have a heavy rubber
door mat made of strips of rubber with gaps between the strips. I bought a
package of zip ties to tie down the articles.
I bought a pair of rubber gloves and I made a handle for the mat with a
cheap leash (the kind they use at vet’s offices). The evening before I introduced the dogs to
the tie-down mat, I zip-tied one leather and one metal article to the mat and
attached the leash handle. I sat the mat
outside in the shade on an outdoor table with a metal grid for a top. I hosed down the mat with its articles and
left it outside to dry and air overnight on the table.
The next day, I did only two reps with each dog, one with a
scented metal and one with a scented leather.
I didn’t write down my results, but my recollection is that both dogs
got one right and one wrong. The next day, Alder got both correctly while Maple
spent a little time tugging on the tied-down metal article before she went for
the scented leather.
Today, I made myself a table to record results. I’ve decided I won’t add additional unscented
articles until both dogs get each article correctly two days in a row. Today,
Maple got both. Alder tried to take the tied-down leather before he picked up
the correct scented metal.
I have stopped rubbing the scented articles vigorously, as
Janice DeMillo does in the Round-the-Clock method, to reduce the problem of a
scent pool. I like the tie-down method
because I don’t have to correct the dogs.
They already have the scented cookie tin background to give them the
idea that they are looking for scent. The tie-down method lets them figure out, on
their own, how to cope with drifting scent and to look for the correctly scented
article.
Connie Cleveland’s description of her method called for a
tie-down board with ALL the articles tied down initially. The dog is supposed to paw at the scented article,
like he did at the cookie tin. Because
my dogs have already done many partial starts of the Round-the-Clock method, I felt
that would be too confusing. They
already know they are supposed to pick up an article.
I’m not concerned that neither one was error-free on the
tie-down mat right away (although it would have been nice!). Because of my
tooth issue, I have been on antibiotics since we started with the tie-down
board. I’ve heard that antibiotics can
throw off a dog doing scent articles. Also, I think my overscenting of the
cookie tin during that phase may have confused them a bit. For now, they seem to have the idea and need
to teach themselves how to solve the practical problem of drifting scent.
Speaking of the tooth…I took the day off work and napped and
read all day. A week of tooth pain, way
too many NSAIDs, and not enough sleep at night, with all of it culminating in a
root canal really wears at a person. I
feel great now. No tooth pain to speak
of and completely rested. Now, my
problem will be getting some sleep tonight so I can get up at 4 am tomorrow and
go to work.
