One great way to build toy drive is chasing a ball on a rope. Softer toys with squeakers grab attention from most of our students. Even if they haven’t been interested in balls before, they can hardly wait for their turn. The rope makes it an interactive game, preventing running away, destroying or burying the …
Are you the time crunched owner of a dog with energy to burn? The flirt pole can harness a dog’s natural instinctive drive to chase prey. This fun, efficient, high intensity exercise makes the most of the time you spend exercising your dog. Even if you only have 10 minutes, it’s a tiring, power packed workout. …
Chasing the Flirt Pole and High Intensity Interval Training for Dogs Read More »
A student recently described how her dog found most of the hides in SDDA Excellent competition, but had a fringe alert. Did she call alert too soon or block her dog’s access to source? If she had asked her dog to check both sides of the vehicle, would he have sat and false alerted just …
Even Olympic medallists eventually take a fall. Some are more catastrophic than others, but how they recover from failure helps determine future results. There’s a lesson for dog handlers and trainers who require constant perfection and suffer as a result. Kaetlyn Osmond took a fall for all to see, and then inspired. She fractured her …
While pondering what to write about for American Brittany Magazine this month, inspiration struck! Several times. In fact, imprinting scent with three 12-week-old pups inspires me daily. Sometimes they make me proud. Sometimes they make me laugh. And sometimes I think how positive is not permissive. When it’s important, I admit I tell my dogs …
With just a few tweaks, you can dramatically improve your dog’s play drive. You may even be surprised to convert a reluctant chow hound to an avid tugger. Read on to learn how to energize your tugging and see if it’s a motivator for your dog. Why Tug? You don’t need to tug to train …
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 …
We have some openings for our nosework seminar this Sunday. If it’s challenging for you to attend weekly classes, this is a great opportunity to try nosework, or work on some of your skills. Dates: Oct 28, Nov 4, Nov 25, 2017 Novice/Beginner 8 – 11 am Advanced/Excellent 12 – 4 pm – work on …
Interested in trying nosework? Join us for the most fun you’ve ever had with your dog. We’ll motivate your dog to love searching for odor at our hugely popular half day introduction to Scent Work. Learn how we’ve trained dogs of all ages, sizes, temperaments and abilities to become reliable scent dogs. No experience required. If your …
Amp Up the Fun! Hunter’s Heart Fall Nosework Seminars Read More »
My Brittany Spaniel, Boo, and I spent our summer competing in nosework on a cross country road trip: from Calgary to California, Seattle to Wisconsin. The experience was thrilling sometimes, and punctuated with scary moments. We tested our limits, and I learned to approach uncertainty more like my fearless dog. For those of you who …
Fear, Fender Benders and Following Your Fearless Dog Read More »
Nosework classes resume this week and we’re going to have some fun motivating your dog to search for odor! If you’re registered, please complete this survey in advance, to get the most out of your experience: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/8WMBQW7. It may take up to 10 minutes to complete. We’ll use your responses to customise the searches for your unique dog. Even …
Join Sniff Alberta for Canada’s first Sniffing Dog Sports Nosework Competition, Calgary, Oct. 7&8, 2017 You’ll love SDS: Save $. Only 1 pass required to title at a level. Try Before You Buy, or register with SDS now. FUN distance game #1, area search and containers (it’s easier than you think). Les stress. No pre-trial, …
Canada’s First Sniffing Dog Sports Nosework Competition, Oct. 7-8, Calgary Read More »
Take your nosework to the next level Juno’s video demonstrates strong commitment to odor in scent work. Sometimes blind searches are confusing for the handler. Juno returns to show the location of target odor repeatedly, making it very obvious where target odor is located, until the rewards appear at source. Even newbies in the audience can …
Here’s our Top 5 Tips on proofing your down indication for K9 Nosework. Tip #1) Always mark or reward finding source. Then you can give extra rewards for the down indication. Watch what happens at 0:18 seconds in the video if you don’t reward the dog for finding source. He offers undesirable behaviors, including looking …
Top 5 Scent Work Tips on Training Your Down Indication Read More »
From the dog’s point of view, rewards are the most important component of dog training. Sadly, many handlers are lousy rewarders and dogs are left confused and rewardless. Is your dog in this miserable majority? Has he ever shut down, or had trouble understanding a seemingly easy behavior? Has he ever found source and left …
Delayed Rewards Are Missed Opportunities in Scent Dog Training Read More »
Only 6 days left! Register now for Nosework classes starting April 5, Calgary Info: https://www.kayennakennels.ca/nosework-classes This video features Keata at our Level 2 (Show Me) Nosework class. Keata (a Border Collie) still indicated the location of scent when we moved containers to a distracting new location. She ignored unplanned distractions when we introduced vehicles and …
Calgary Nosework Classes – Video of Keata (Border Collie) Learning to Indicate Scent Read More »
This fun scent maze challenged our advanced nosework students to navigate around gates impeding access to the box containing odor to get to source. Teams were allowed perform this blind search off leash at a distance, and ignored pork distractions near the camera. Thanks Carma, Joe, Pat, Katherine, Mike, May and Theresa for being good sports! …
Scent Maze Video: Can Your Dog Find His Way to Source? Read More »
Hunter’s Heart trains nosework by breaking it down into small achievable steps, setting teams up for success from day 1. Rewarding is crucial to motivating the dog to search for scent and having fun. We begin with a reward that the dog loves. Nosework training teaches the dog to search for the target odors, while …
Scent work is a game, and some rewards are better than others. You know you’re on the right track when your dog is so excited you can see the whites of his eyes. What did it look like when you saw your dog that excited? Was he chasing a bird? Or would he rather chase …
Scent work is a game, with its roots in hunting and finding prey. In nosework, dogs must learn to ignore distractions to search and find the target odor. We use games to train scent work, and harness the dog’s natural drives. To train a rock-solid detection dog, introduce easy distractions and gradually work up to …
Scent Work – How to Train Distractions with Fun Nosework Games Read More »
