N101J: NW101 - Introduction to Nosework

From Week 1: Odor Conditioning

We condition our dogs to respond to a target odor by associating it with a primary reinforcer - usually food. The process is simple: we pair the odor with a reward by giving the dog some treats whenever it encounters the odor. There are several effective ways to do this. You can hold out the odor vessel in your hand and feed your dog directly at the source. You can pair the odor with mealtimes so that it becomes associated with something positive. You can even offer your dog a choice between food and the odor, then reward it when it chooses the odor. All of these methods help reinforce the dog’s interest in and focus on the odor.

Another method is to put the target odor in a large rim bowl or colander and feed “over odor”.  

There are many benefits to this method:

• It keeps the dog’s nose down and their eyes off the handler - especially off the handler’s hands.
• It allows for a steady rhythm, with treats dropping one at a time in a continuous flow.
• It leverages the dog’s anticipation of that predictable rhythm, which can then be used to shape a sustained nose freeze at source.

A sturdy, wide-rimmed bowl works best, as it allows us to keep our hands above the dog’s head while delivering treats. The moment our hands get too involved, dogs start focusing on our "food hands" and quickly learn to watch us instead of working independently. By keeping our hands high, dogs learn to wait for treats to "drop from the sky". 

For some dogs using a flat plate or pie pan will work better. Some dogs may worry about pushing into the deep bowl. Whether it's a bowl, colander, or pie plan, they all allow for dropping treats near odor.

When you first start out, you don’t need to mark any behaviour. In fact, we don’t want you to mark anything yet. Just focus on your mechanics of dropping treats directly over the source.

Here is an example of using a bowl with the loaded qtip tin. You can also use a colander, and place it inside a big bowl like this with the hot tin under the colander.

Homework 

1. Prep before training:
   1. Select a wide-rimmed colander, bowl or pie pan. From this point forward, I’ll refer to any of these as the “OC Container”. 
   2. Prepare your tin vessel with 3-6 qtips inside. Use a lower number if your dog is sensitive to smells or shows apprehension to check out the odor.
   3. Place your tin inside your chosen OC Container.
   4. Have small soft HIGH VALUE treats available in a nearby dish or in an accessible pocket or treat pouch. 
   5. Soft treats are best for quick consumption like cheese, cubed meat, and freeze-dried treats. If your dog will quickly swallow other treats like kibble, that is fine too.
2. Sit on the floor/on your knees or in a chair. Preferably not standing as that puts you too far away and can draw your dogs attention up.
3. Have some treats in both of your hands.
4. With your dog in place, put your container in front of you. Your dog should check it out. If your dog is in front of you, it’s easier to drop the treats over their nose.
5. Drop treats one at a time by alternating which hand you drop a treat out of. This helps create a nice predictable rhythm. Drop treats at a pace so that your dog never lifts nose/head up. No need to mark any behaviour as we are just feeding over odor.
6. When you are finished rewarding (or run out of treats), say “ok” (or a release word of your choice), and pick up your container.
   1. If you EVER HAVE TO RELOAD TREATS, just end this round and pick up the container. 
   2. The release cue will be applied later in your training when searching multiple hides. Note: some of my videos below are older and I say "good girl" when I pick up the odor - I would use a release word instead. 
7. Pick up your container between reps as this is an important step when introducing odor. We want our dog to build a strong habit of staying at source. Every repetition should reinforce that staying at odor is the right choice. 
8. Load up with more treats and place your container back down and do another repetition.

Practice 2-4 times a day for about 3 minutes each. Make sure to reset your dog every 30s so they can take a breath. This will align to about 5-6 repetitions.

Wide-rimmed Bowl Example

Watch the steady rhythm using both hands. At first, my hands are moving too low toward the bowl and then I get more comfortable holding them higher and dropping treats from above. You can also hold your hands in one place above the bowl instead of pumping your arms like I was doing. 

Colander Example

Here's a student video showing good mechanics over the colander. She is using Bocce's Bakery Say Moo Beef & Cheddar Training Treats. I mention this as the type of treats/texture can make all the difference! 

Pie Pan Example