Thread: Training scents

Originally Posted by RCGSP

Saying you want to train your dogs to use it's nose is like saying you want to train your kid to use it's eyes. It doesn't work that way.

I believe it is actually counter productive and a lot of people end up handicapping their dogs by overdoing things.

If you think about pigeons, they stink relative to real wild game birds. They are much easier for a dog to wind. With pointing breeds in particular this is a problem because the dog has much more scent up it's nose before establishing point which will lead them to wanting to get far too close to wild birds before pointing.

They are useful to get a young dog pointing staunchly and doing steadiness but overworking a dog on pigeons before working them on the real thing will make them too reliant on strong scent and make them bump birds. Once a dog has wild bird experience they learn the difference between the two so it's not as much of a problem but even still with all my dogs, after they have a few traps to get them staunch and steady they only see pigeons at trials and the odd time to brush up on their manners.

The same concept is true for dragging deer hides. Dragging a whole hide leaves a veritable highway of scent. Nowhere near an accurate representation of the real thing. Hide drags to dogs are easy and boring. I expect any pup with any talent whatsoever to be able to do them in their sleep. Over training on these tracks can make them lazy about tracking, or bore them into disinterest, or get them in the habit of running tracks too fast so they can't track accurately in the real world when the tracks are harder.

The same concepts apply to frozen/thawed birds, they stink. To illustrate the point take an experienced dog that you've done real wild bird work with and put out pigeons/frozen stuff out for them. They will wind the stuff at far greater distances than they do the real thing. It isn't realistic.

I do a very limited amount (once or twice at most) with a wing and/or a small patch of deer/rabbit hide on a string just to get the pups generally familiar with the basic concept and smells and make sure they aren't morons. Aside from that I think the best nose training is just getting them out there in the paddocks/bush. They will learn to use their noses just fine on their own without being flooded with scent.

If you want them I'm pretty sure I've got some wings/hides etc in the freezer you can have but I would caution you against over doing it.

Thanks I can see the logic here.