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Embarrassed? Nope. Bemused that you're spending the first day of your holidays thinking about work? Oh yeah!!!

Yep, but more as proofing exercises than actual training. C'mon Cosmolo, what happened?

Yes and No... The dogs are expected to distinguish between things like apple flavoured soap and real apples and even between black tea with citrus flavouring v/s black tea with citrus pieces. We come across a lot of cosmetics with flavourings or scents which would be considered a target on thier own (in true form), wheather the dog will or should respond to the item will depend on how processed/altered the item is in the cosmetic itself. Relatively intact basil for instance would get an indication while highly processed or just basil flavouring would not. This is a skill that takes time and targeted training to achieve, (we never stop training) and one of the reasons I suggested caution in introducing this type of item early in the dogs development. Sorry for the muddled answer but there really are very few simple questions or answers when it comes to scent work.

And here I was safely lurking in the shadows during my lunch break. The short answer is Yes, she should indicate but there's a host of reasons why she may not and several why you should think carefully before going ahead. I'd be looking back over my training history (of course you keep one, don't you?) to see what presentations the dog has been exposed to in the past. (dry, fresh, oils...etc) and has there been any planned progression from single target odour indications to discrimination in the presence of competing/masking odours? You need to remember that the dog is smelling the entire scent picture, so the first time the dog is exposed to a more complex scent picture, (target odour and masking/competing odour like basil in handcream) you would not expect the indication to be at 100%. If on the otherhand you'd built up to this presentation with plain face cream and basil in seperate presentations then hidden together and then combined together. You could probably expect a much clearer and confident indication. I'd suggest caution with targets of this type especially with a newer dog as it's discrimination capabilities will still be developing. Anytime you give a reward to an undefined or mixed scent picture you run the risk of creating false response issues further down the track. (eg, dog now responds to plain face cream) The presentation you're planning paints a complex picture for the dog and while it will be very easy to teach her to respond to the basil face cream, you'll also need to ensure that she is capable of discriminating between the competing odours before you could say with any certainty that the dog is only indicating to the basil. So that's my version of a short answer, If it was a working dog that I planned on using for serious detection work I'd be planning my attack on this very carefully. If on the other hand I was just mucking about with one of my dogs at home, I'd be like a Nike ad and "Just Do It." See what happens and deal with any fallout later. Goodluck. Jeff

Have you given any thought to attempting to change the dogs mindset from "sometimes, just maybe the toy may be my ab fab fave" to "sometimes, just maybe there might be a toy in the bag"? I think, if done correctly, this could provide a marked increase in reward value and decrease your reliance on multiple toys to maintain motivation. If you were succesful in this you could still use different toys but on a less frequent rotation which could again, provide an increase reward value. Just an idea. :rolleyes:

Do you vary your rewards/ the way you reward? Yes, but not to any great degree. If you use food, do you always use the same type? Pretty much, will sometimes change it a little but rarely. Does the reward change in relation to the difficulty/ distractions? Yes, teaching and initial proofing stages especially. Interesting observation, I totally agree with the different levels of reward being very important in maintaining motivation. Unfortunately I believe a lot of people translate this to mean many different types of reward instead. I'm not totally against varying the type of reward but I do feel you will get more consistent results if you work with the dogs strongest motivator the majority of the time and vary access, volume, quantity etc...

You were definately onto it but it's Erny that hit it on the head. In my discussions with the people in question not one single person raised the idea of varying the reward schedule in any way. I thought limiting access to the food would be an easy way of increasing it's value and varying the reward schedule would be a simple way of doing it. I'm not saying it's the only way (there's already been lots of good ideas thrown up here) I was just surprised that it didn't come up. So, I guess my next question is, do you think I was being fair when I posed the original question and what do you think of the reward schedule idea in regards to that situation?

I think I may have inadvertantly thrown in a red herring with my last comment so will try to clarify it without giving the game away. What could you do to increase the value the dog places on the dry kibble (or any type of reward for that matter) without feeding meals as treats or starving the dog?

This is heading down the right road, explore it a bit more and you'll be an oddball like me.

I think that's an excellent answer and again it's one that came up in discussion, just not the one I had in mind. (I'm looking more and more like an oddball) To help narrow it down a little I'll reduce the options: 1. They cannot use any food rewards other than the allotted kibble. 2. Introducing alternate forms of reward is not an option. I'm sure everyone will go "Doh!!' in their best Homer Simpson voice once someone gets it as did everyone I spoke with on the day. I just found it surprising that no one offered it up without being led into it. Lablover; I'll have a scotch while your at the bar. (I've still got an hour before moto gp comes on free to air)

No nothing really against cheese (although for work Cheese is a target and I don't want my dog eating someones mail) I was more just making a point (between giggles)that the scenario allowed no flexibility in the type of food used. I'm really hoping someone will come up with what I was after (I don't want to be an oddball) so I'll probably hang off telling what it was for a day or so.

You're right there.. I've got a little dog you can teach most things in a few repetitions, only problem being it generally takes me twice that to figure it out.

I like the change of motivator idea a lot and it is one that the best answers included. and by the way, there never has, nor will there ever be cheese. I'm not advocating doing the 1 treat thing either, it was just a question I thought would be useful at the time. I was looking to get an insight into the way the people solved problems and was surprised that nobody offered what I thought was an easy solution. I'm not claiming to know it all by any stretch, I did get a lot of very good ideas I would never have been inventive enough to come up with by myself, I just never got the one I was looking for. Keep em coming, it's all good.

I wouldn't like to put a figure on it but I would say that I expect the first few behaviours taught to take significantly more repetitions to become reliable than subsequent behaviours. I've always made much better progress after cementing the first few behaviours. I think this teaches the dog how to learn and therefore new behaviours are offered/complied with far more readily. So, to teach the first few single wanted behaviours, I'd say until it's reliable. To teach subsequent single wanted behaviours, I'd still say until it's reliable but it won't take as long. I'd also think how natural the behaviour is would have a fair impact as well. So, teaching dogs trained for retrieving to drop? I'll say 5 repetitions?

Thought I'd kick off my first post in the training section with a question that's been bugging me for a while. I was recently in a position to pose a series of questions to people in regard to general training knowledge and style. One question I asked that generated a lot of different answers was along the lines of this: You're dog has been trained using a food based reward system, the treats you use have included a variety of tasty morsels including chicken, liver treats, hot dogs etc.... Circumstances arise that mean you will now only be able to use a single brand and flavour of dried kibble as a reward treat with your dog. What potential problems could this cause with your dogs motivation and what steps could you take to overcome them? Now I got some pretty good answers (as well as some really out there ones) but never the one I thought was the most obvious. So in the interest of determining if I'm a bit of an oddball in this department (very likely) I'd like to hear what your ideas would be if you were placed in this situation. Remember adding variety to the type of reward is non negotiable. What would you do? Jeff.

I'd be more concerned with the rapid up and down motions than the swing through the air. Provided the dog is prepared for the swing and has the strength of grip to hang on, a nice controlled swing shouldn't do any harm. I work with several dogs that get a tug toy reward and some I swing some I don't. Guess it's like everything really...Depends on the dog.