Using the Nose

[ladyjubilee]

We are working on Bramble finding my son on command. I think sometimes she is using her ears more than her nose when she finds him (he has a very unique breathing pattern.) I always understood that dog's primary sense is smell (except the sight hounds), but it is obvious that sometimes she is catching the sound over the scent as her ears with swivel towards where he is, but her nose isn't down following the trail.

Is it ok to still reward her for finding him when she isn't using the scent to track him, but is following the sound? Or is she really catching the scent, then narrowing down by the sounds?

Of her tasks, this will be the second most important even though it is a "soft" task.

[TimL_168]

Scent, and the way it carries, eddies and disperses is downright bewildering often times. Frequentlyy, the breast we can do is give an educated guess about what the air is carrying, and where. She could very well be using her nose and ears together. She could also be relying solely on the ears.
Early on, especially in your situation, I'd say it's fine to reward. Think of it this way. Her goal is to find him. Any way she can do that is a positive. However, if it's likely that he will try to elude and remain silent, she should learn to focus on the nose

[ladyjubilee]

He doesn't try to hide from her, and in a real life situation I suspect he'd either freeze or wander. For the most part we don't have an elopement issue.

On the up side, the both see this as a wonderful game, and are happy to practice.

I did hear back from the trainer, and he also said to keep rewarding and that we will work to make the task harder in the next session.

[TimL_168]

Cool! I was just reading a post on a SAR Facebook page about this topic. Same deal. Reward for the success, and build the future lessons to focus on the nose. Just try to remember, it's always best for the dog to be successful, so make your searches short at first!

[ladyjubilee]

I have been. Yesterday, though,they both wanted to "play" longer than I wanted to. They are both really seeing this "task" as great fun, along the lines of playing fetch.

[Tim91118]

What words do you use when she searches for him ?

[ladyjubilee]

"Find your boy". She often goes over and "checks on" him. Not really training, but just naturally when I praised her I'd say, something like "did you check on your boy". The trainer noticed that everytime I said it, she'd check on him (which includes a sniff.) We made that the command for check on him (migraine check), then have evolved "find your boy".

[Tim91118]

I would say not much nose is used.

[ladyjubilee]

Sometimes she definitely uses her nose. She'll actually have her nose to the ground