I'm doing a scent work clinic tomorrow

Leo Walker

Leo Walker

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with my whippet! We did some baby stuff at puppy school and he just loves it. We've been doing some very basic "find it" stuff at home most days, and he now plays "find it" all by himself :lol: Apparently no one has told him hes a sight hound! Tomorrows is outside in a huge open area with lots of distractions and hes only just 5 months old so will be interesting to see how he goes.

Anyone else do anything like that?
 
I'm training my Rottie X to track and find. She is incredible at it until she sees a rabbit or pheasant!!! I need to be very quick to distract her.
 
I have to admit, my "sight hounds" have the sight ability of something short sighted..... particularly squirrels playing ahead of them.... :)
 
I have doñe training for working trials in the past. Part of that is sçent work a search square añd a track. I did it with 2 of my Boxers ànd 1 of my Beardies it was great fun and the dogs really enjoyed it as well:-D Who is the trainer? Hope you and the Whippet have a:-)
 
I train with Jackador. They did some training with a big name trainer whose name I forget back end of last year and its being filtered down to us mere mortals now :) Fingers crossed for no more snow!
 
I do IPO tracking which is quite different to WT/mantrailing etc. It's quite formulaic, always the same number of footsteps/corners/legs/articles depending on the level and quite technical in comparison, no casting, airscenting or lifting the head and no influence from the handler.
My dog is a 'natural' tracker and hunts the scent, he does it for the buzz, so it has been quite a challenge to get him to track in a slow, methodical style, but it's generally a strong exercise for him, as he is so driven.

My showline GSD was a great tracker and it was him that got me started....it really helped him with a lot of other issues, including reactivity to other dogs, once he had a 'job' to do.
 
We have some training nearby and thought of having a go but I think the one dog which would do well at it already has enough activities, I need to find something that the old boy would enjoy.
 
How did you get on OP? You'll both probably be knackered!

missmatch said:
I'm training my Rottie X to track and find. She is incredible at it until she sees a rabbit or pheasant!!! I need to be very quick to distract her.
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There's a lot of snipe/woodcock around here at the mo which spring up at the last moment! Also have to contend with people and dogs walking across the track, bloody crows lifting the bait (if I could track a crow I'd be laughing) and the weirdest one was a ginger tom slowly and methodically lifting every bit of food from every footprint back down the track towards us. I had to do a lot of silent arm waving and gesticulating to try not to distract dog/alert him to presence of said cat!!
 
Yes I do tracking and scentwork with my dog. I attended working trial classes last year but haven't had a chance to go back for a few months - hopefully will in future though, or may just stick to the tracking.

It is a great way to tire a dog mentally and most really seem to enjoy it too.



 
CorvusCorax said:
bloody crows lifting the bait (if I could track a crow I'd be laughing) and the weirdest one was a ginger tom slowly and methodically lifting every bit of food from every footprint back down the track towards us. I had to do a lot of silent arm waving and gesticulating to try not to distract dog/alert him to presence of said cat!!
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Ha! Never had a cat stealing food, but the crows are something else! After they kept stealing the food I put on my track, I bought little pots with lids and the darned things came down while the track was aging, opened the pots and ate the food - the only thing they didn't do was replace the lids! Little swines :D
 
He loved it! He was the youngest there by miles and I was very careful to give him lots of breaks and made sure he stayed warm and dryish in the pouring rain. He just gets it. We went from "find it" which was looking for treats, to "seek on" which was him running the course looking for cat nip in a sterile sealed container. He only needed the cat nip pairing with a treat once and then every time he just took me straight to it and looked at me as if it say "its here stupid!" :lol:

I hadnt actually realised the scope of scent work so I'm definitely going to do more as we both enjoyed it even with the awful weather! And I think we might see if we can go on to do some conservation type work with it. It seems a shame to have a dog so very keen to do it and not make use of his lovely, willing attitude.

I dont have any photos of him doing anything but there is this brilliant outtake of one of the adult dogs going to find birds :lol:

[video]https://www.facebook.com/jackadors/videos/1069749183153015/[/video]
 
I've just started a course with my WCS. He's good at it, that nose really gets going and the tail never stops, I'm looking into doing search and rescue with him when he's older, he's just turned 7 months and is a total delight!
 
Glad he enjoyed it :)

This morning's distraction was a huge flock of seagulls which landed on the track while I was waiting for it to mature lol. Plus the field was covered in goose poop.
 
WorkingGSD said:
It is great so many owners are starting to see the benefits of getting a dog to use his nose - they absolutely love it.
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its good fun-with a pup too I've used it to train other commands much faster (for me anyway). We use gun oil and scent various things-including Ikea mice (friends at xmas were alarmed to see sealed jars of toy mice in the kitchen).

Any dog can do it-we have cavs (which have quite sold me on the breed), rotties, braccos and cross breeds. As you go up the levels though there's no doubt the gun dogs excel but also poodles and have seen a rather impressive beagle!
 
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