It’s your last chance to learn the basics of scent in our new Scent Detection – Imprinting Target Odor for Beginners online course. Class starts tomorrow (Jan. 6, 2020). Register at: https://www.cleanrun.com/category/learning_center/agility_instructors/carla_simon_online_classes/index. ******Thanks to everyone who shared on our web pages. The winners of the free scholarships are: Karen ibbitson and Christine Cowley. Congratulations! ***** …
Scent is a moving target, carried and distorted by the wind. As a handler, one of the most challenging parts of your job is figuring out how to help your sniffer dog get to where they need to be to find odor, rather than hindering them by blocking or pulling them away from scent. Therefore, …
Have a dog that loves to sniff or needs a job to do? Curious about how dogs can detect everything from bed bugs to cancer? Learn the basics of scent in our new Scent Detection – Imprinting Target Odor for Beginners online course, starting Jan. 6, 2020: https://www.cleanrun.com/category/learning_center/agility_instructors/carla_simon_online_classes/index. This course is provides a broad introduction …
This blog has been updated in the IAABC Journal, Spring 2020: https://spring2020.iaabcjournal.org/the-clever-hans-effect-scent-detection/?fbclid=IwAR28KpQBKKbCRY5GyAy73ssB2pWiEyyokkwxYJIZ0jHDeN556UsObQ3fHhg Clever Hans was a horse who became famous for answering math questions by counting with his hoof (1). For example, when asked what’s the square root of nine, he tapped his hoof three times. He was featured by the New York Times and …
Avoiding the Clever Hans Phenomenon in Scent Detection Read More »
Do infants smell delicious? A 2013 study in Frontiers in Psychology used brain imaging to show that the scent of 2-day-old infants activates the reward related areas of the brain (1). This activation didn’t show up in the olfactory cortex where you might expect, but in the reward areas: the same areas activated by yummy food like …
Lori’s question: Is there ever an advantage to using single odor hides? For example, one hide is wintergreen, another hide is birch with anise, etc.. (We started training using a cocktail of Birch + Anise + Clove + Wintergreen cocktail.) Answer: Cocktail allows us to train several odors at the same time so we rarely …
Converging Odors and Single Odor Hides vs. Cocktail FAQ Read More »
Classes at Kayenna Kennels, Calgary Learn nosework at Kayenna Kennels (near Southland and Macleod, Calgary) with a 6-week class. Level 1 – We’ve inspired hundreds of students internationally and can help motivate your dog to find target scent. No previous experience required. Puppies are welcome after their second set of vaccinations.Learn more: https://youtu.be/wC9MRR7ui70 Level 2 – …
Shopping for the holiday season? You can never have too many scent dog training books, right? Here’s a list of our favorite canine books and websites you might enjoy: Nosework & Scent Discrimination Scent and The Scenting Dog, William G. Syrotuck is a broad introduction to how scent travels in the air. It explores the …
They both rely on scent to navigate through their environment. Sperm use chemotaxis to navigate to eggs, and newborn puppies use olfaction to navigate to the milk in their dam’s nipples, from the day their born. For animals like fish, that reproduce outside of their bodies, it’s obviously crucial to reproductive success for sperm to …
Odor hygiene refers to properly handling target odor, so you know with certainty where odor is located, and where it is not located. Good odor hygiene enables more teams to succeed. It’s a really important component of holding successful scent detection trials, where every participant has a role to play. This post will outline some …
Get a glimpse into your dog’s fascinating world of scent – Fri. Jan. 5, 2018, in Calgary Scentscapes & Scent Theory 101, presentation (no dogs) – $50.00 There’s a whole world of scent, which allows dogs to detect everything from bombs to cancer. But because air is invisible, humans are generally unaware. Scentscapes videos show …
Wonder how scent works? Learn about the science behind olfaction and how dogs learn scent detection. Topics include: What is Scent detection? Nosework demonstration How scent works Canine olfaction and muscle memory How dogs learn and how best to teach them Breaking down components of a dog’s search Why we don’t use a verbal command …
How well do you understand the impact of wind on vehicle searches? Here’s a link to a 2 minute video of an advanced vehicle search so you can test your knowledge of wind: https://youtu.be/nLg5FQ473oA It’s a cool, moderately windy day for a Sniff Alberta fun match judged by Joe Richardson (thanks Joe). There are 3 hides on one …
Wind is complicated, but it’s important to succeeding in scent detection. Depending on wind direction, you may need to check all sides of a vehicle (or any object) to avoid calling a false alert. When you’re beginning to learn nosework with container searches indoors, you could just follow your dog and pass without ever …
Why does scent disperse, instead of just staying inside the hide? It’s a law of nature. Scent spreads out. Read on if you want to learn more about the science behind scent dispersion, and what it has to do with the Smarties in the picture. SCENT DISPERSION AND ENTROPY Scent disperses because of the Second …
A dog’s sense of smell (aka olfaction) is 10,000 – 100,000 times stronger than a human’s. What does that mind-numbing number mean? Picture it on a map. Let’s be conservative: say the canine sense of smell is 10,000 better. According to James Walker, former researcher at the Sensory Research Institute at Florida State University, if you make an analogy …
When a dog enters the scent cone and detects odor, how does he follow it back to its source? A dog’s sense of smell is so fine-tuned that he can distinguish which nostril is experiencing more odor at any given time. So when his left nostril smells more odor than the right, he will turn left. …
WHAT IS SCENT DETECTION? From the first domesticated dog, humans and dogs evolved together for a long time. Originally, dogs helped humans in tracking and hunting game. Depending on wind, dog can pickup scent plume 100 feet away and find the source (highest concentration of target odor). Group hunting was a selective advantage. Scent detection …
Our scent detection training is based on obedience to odor. That might sound pretty scary, but it’s all based on rewarding your dog. A dog that’s obedient to odor is obedient to his nose. He’s irresistibly drawn to the target odor and is highly motivated to get to source (the highest concentration of target odor). Dondi …
A “hide” is the package of target odor inside a ventilated container that is hidden in the search are for the dog to find. The photo shows a very common type of hide, made from blotting paper scented with target odor inside a metal tin with magnets, which easily secure the hide to a metal surface. Other favorite hide containers include metal tins with holes, shipping labels, plastic tubes, etc..
