Can Some Dogs Just Not Smell Stuff Very Well?

[Staranais]

I've taken my middle aged staffy bull to tracking classes for the last year, on and off, with no real success. He's certainly very motivated - he'll stick his nose down and power forward on command, apparently on track, but completely misses corners, and often veers off the straight track.

I've been putting this lack of success down to me being too busy to practice frequently, coupled with him being a very slow learner (I love him, but he really is not smart). I've been assuming that if I only stay patient and keep practicing, he'll eventually pick the idea up. He will never be able to get a tracking title (due to being unable to jump) so we're not in any hurry.

However, recently I've been wondering if his nose is just really underdeveloped or something. :rolleyes:

He can definately smell somewhat, if you hold something very smelly in your closed fist right in front of his nose, he will sniff your hand and get quite excited, so he definately knows that it's in there. But his sense of smell just doesn't seem to be very powerful.

For example, yesterday I was training some obedience on the lawn with him, throwing royal canin kibble into the (short!) grass for him to run and get for a reward. For anyone who hasn't smelt the royal canin kibble, it's really quite stinky for kibble, after I've held it I can smell kibble scent on my hands easily. So presumably, he should be able to smell it quite easily too?

Anyway, he was unable to locate the kibble on the grass without me pointing it out to him.

It's the same deal if I hide kibble in the lounge for him, under the edge of a mat or something - he will sniff as well as look for the kibble, but won't be able to find it unless he sniffs within maybe 20 or 30cm of the hidden kibble. And even then he won't zero right in on it, it will take him a while to figure out where the smell is coming from, and if he can't find the kibble in the scented area he rapidly gives up and goes looks somewhere else.

Has anyone else out there had experience with a dog who can't or won't use their nose?

Does anyone have any suggestions for telling whether a dog actually has something wrong with his sense of smell, or whether he just doesn't know how to use it?

Help or suggestions much appreciated, as I'm feeling a little frustrated.

[BC]

I'm defiantely no tracking expert, but maybe he is not 100% sure what he is supposed to be doing.

He can definately smell, but it is not really clear to him what he is supposed to be doing with it, eg, following that certain smell, and not getting side tracked by other smells etc !!!

I'm sure it a similar principal to training for scent discrimination articles, and seek back in obedience. Taking it very slowly and one step at a time so the dog 100% knows, what smells you are wanting them to follow/recognise.

Just my inexperienced thoughts, but maybe you need to start again so it is very clear to him. I'm sure others will have more of an idea on how to do this than me, but good luck :rolleyes:

I love watching scent discrimination and tracking.

Edited September 24, 2007 by BC

[Staranais]

I'm defiantely no tracking expert, but maybe he is not 100% sure what he is supposed to be doing.

Lol, perhaps that is true for the tracking bit. But when I threw the pieces of kibble in the short grass and encouraged him to find them, he knew exactly what he was trying to do. Understanding and motivation wasn't a problem, but he was still quite unable to locate a single piece of kibble without my help.

Thanks for the thought though.

[PAX]

Lol, perhaps that is true for the tracking bit. But when I threw the pieces of kibble in the short grass and encouraged him to find them, he knew exactly what he was trying to do. Understanding and motivation wasn't a problem, but he was still quite unable to locate a single piece of kibble without my help.

Thanks for the thought though.

Hi Am,

Perhaps he gives up looking for the kibble as he knows you have on you and it is easier to get it from you. Maybe the area has so many kibble smells that he doesn't try as hard as he could.

Does he go and look for the kibble on the lawn after you leave?

Is he toy motivated? You might have more luck teaching him to track for something he considers high level like an orbee ball or Kong if he is into them (or another male dog...kidding).

[Staranais]

Hi Pax!

Perhaps he gives up looking for the kibble as he knows you have on you and it is easier to get it from you.

Maybe. Although he continues to look as long as I encourage him to do so, it's not like he gives up searching and starts begging or offering other behaviours. More like he is trying really hard, but can't actually find it.

Maybe the area has so many kibble smells that he doesn't try as hard as he could.

Nah, this was the first time this spring I trained with food outside on the lawn, so no possible other kibble smell in the area. Just a flat patch of mown lawn. He couldn't find even the first few bits of kibble I threw (and it's pretty stinky for kibble).

Does he go and look for the kibble on the lawn after you leave?

Nope, if I leave the area he comes too. Same with any training we do though. I think he assumes that the motivator is no longer available when I've gone.

Is he toy motivated? You might have more luck teaching him to track for something he considers high level like an orbee ball or Kong if he is into them (or another male dog...kidding).

Oh yes, he's super super toy motivated, and when we track I do usually leave a toy at the end of the track instead of baiting the track with food. I bait him with the toy till he's very excited, then go lay the track, then get him out and run it. Motivation isn't the issue, he knows that there is a toy out there and he's very keen to get to it.

And the tracks we've done are all short and fresh, so it's not like I'm pushing him too hard. (Have tried leaving them 10 min to see if letting the ground scent develop makes a difference, but it doesn't seem to).

I'm just beginning to suspect that he's learned to pull me along with his head down in order to get to the toy, but he's not actually been scenting anything. It's more like he's been relying on the tracking line to guide him (as per the advice I got from the tracking people, I will stop him if he wanders too far off the track and wait till he gets back on the track before allowing him to proceed - so I sort of wonder whether he's just learned to pull me along in a straight line for as long as I allow him to do so, in order to find the toy?).

After trying the kibble hiding experiment, I've started to wonder if I'm asking him to do something that he simply physically just can't do - perhaps some genetic quirk or accident has just resulted in him having a crappy sense of smell? It's frustrating and weird.

Thanks for the help.

[Rom]

Hi Am,

I've read that dogs who have a short snout in relation to their head size have lower scenting ability and the longer the snout, the better the scenting ability. When I originally read this, I was thinking in terms of pugs etc, but I guess that the staffy being somewhere in the middle might also be affected?

I don't know of any staffies that track, although I have seen a staffy take part in scent discrimination and seek back in the ring. The staffy that I've seen is very old though and did have problems with these exercises. It seems like you say...she was trying, but just not getting there with any reliability.

Having said that, I have a friend that tracks with a Cav who does quite well.

Maybe the way that I taught my girl might help.

I used to let her watch me prepare her breakfast, then I'd lock her in the shed while I took her breakfast for a walk down the paddock and hid it behind a tree. Then I'd let her out of the shed to find her breakfast. She didn't get breakfast until she found it.

I also used to put treats on the articles. Initially there were a lot of articles on the track and she could see them so she wasn't really tracking. As she got better at going to the articles to get the treats, I reduced the number of articles and put more distance between them and her nose went back to the ground to help her find the articles. I then stopped placing the treats on the articles and started carrying them with me so that I could mark and reward when I found the articles. Maybe this will help? Give your dog a visual cue with the articles and then fade the visual?

I think that when you don't have a partner to train with, using articles straight up helps because the reward comes at the article and helps the dog to know when the exercise stops? I also have a friend that trains by himself and he says that the exercise stops for reward and restarts at each article. He reckons that this helps because he can verbally reward at each article during trial and restart the dog by command, but also its easier for him to teach the required article identification behaviour, which for him is a sit at the article.

Also using lots of articles straight up gives the dog plenty of opportunity for reward and encourgagement in the learning phases of the exercise.

I think its on the leerburg site where there is an article comparing footstep tracking with tracking in drive. The basic point that they made that really seemed to apply to my dog is that working to find lots of treats on the ground is really hard work and a lot of dogs don't have the stamina for this, they pointed out that the dogs work very slowly without much enthusiasm, although they do seem to be more methodical workers when their training is complete. My dog would just lose interest with this way of teaching because she was under pressure to find every single piece of kibble and she'd stop tracking. However, when we worked up to a finding a few articles with her breakfast at the end, she was gathering all the information she needed on the fly and she seemed much more enthusiastic. An observation that I made with my dog is that if her breakfast was at the end, she'd use the kibble and treats on the articles to let her know which way to go but she wouldn't stop to pick up any of the treats on the way. My initial training with her was free form...no harness or lead. I wonder if I'd had a harness or lead on her I would have confused her by guiding her back to kibble on the track? By hanging around tracking trials I'd heard lots of converstations about the confusion caused by the wrong signals being sent down the lead and since I was a newby, I decided to leave the possibility for that confusion out of the equation in the initial training I didn't put a lead or harness on her until she was working with confidence and reliability. I guess this helped her because she never got into the habit of relying on me if she lost the track....she had to work to find it. And I think it helped me because I had confidence that she could find it so I was more in the mind set to follow the two most frequently heard things that I've heard at trials....'Trust your dog', and 'Just go with your dog'.

I've also read that training of a late afternoon when the ground temperature is higher than the air temperature can help a dog out because under these circumstances the scent on the ground is rising to meet the dog. Another tip I've heard is that if there is a breeze, lay the track into the breeze so that when you put your dog onto it, the breeze is bringing the scent of the track to the dog....just little things to help when you're first teaching a dog so that you make it as easy as possible for them to learn in the beginning stages of training. It may mean that your dog air scents to a degree, but as the tracks get older/more complicated I haven't had a problem with my dogs nose going back to the ground.

[MonElite]

uppss double post

Edited September 25, 2007 by myszka

[MonElite]

uppss triple post

Edited September 25, 2007 by myszka

[MonElite]

From what I understand some medication can supress their ability to scent quite significantly. Cant remember which drugs, but is he on any?

[Staranais]

I've read that dogs who have a short snout in relation to their head size have lower scenting ability and the longer the snout, the better the scenting ability. When I originally read this, I was thinking in terms of pugs etc, but I guess that the staffy being somewhere in the middle might also be affected?

That could be true, I guess. He certainly snorts a lot when he breaths, which could be related?

I know of pitbulls that track pretty well, but have also never seen a staffy doing it. Of course, even if some staffs can, doesn't mean mine's not broken.

Maybe this will help? Give your dog a visual cue with the articles and then fade the visual?

I'm sort of giving him a visual cue with tracking sticks, and I'm not sure it's helping - I try to keep them far apart so that he doesn't just walk from stick to stick instead of scenting! I'm not using articles, just running short tracks with the reward (toy) placed on the ground at the end.

I haven't really even tried the footstep food tracking, since both tracking groups I've trained with use something similar to Leerburg's training in drive.

My initial training with her was free form...no harness or lead. I wonder if I'd had a harness or lead on her I would have confused her by guiding her back to kibble on the track? By hanging around tracking trials I'd heard lots of converstations about the confusion caused by the wrong signals being sent down the lead and since I was a newby, I decided to leave the possibility for that confusion out of the equation in the initial training

That's a cool idea, however I'm pretty sure my boy would just run round like a maniac while looking for the cool stuff I'd hidden. How did you explain what you wanted to your dog without any sort of leash? How did you encourage your dog to keep her head down and scent a track, instead of allowing her to just go looking for the item?

I've also read that training of a late afternoon when the ground temperature is higher than the air temperature can help a dog out because under these circumstances the scent on the ground is rising to meet the dog. Another tip I've heard is that if there is a breeze, lay the track into the breeze so that when you put your dog onto it, the breeze is bringing the scent of the track to the dog....just little things to help when you're first teaching a dog so that you make it as easy as possible for them to learn in the beginning stages of training.

Got that, thanks. I normally track either in the cool of the evening or just after rain as that's suppose to be when it's easiest for them to scent. Have tried two suggestions as far as wind direction goes: the wind from behind us (blows scent away so that his nose is forced to go down to the track) and in front of us (so the scent is blown in our direction) with no real difference in his success rate.

Myszka - no drugs, but thanks for the suggestion.

[Rom]

That's a cool idea, however I'm pretty sure my boy would just run round like a maniac while looking for the cool stuff I'd hidden. How did you explain what you wanted to your dog without any sort of leash? How did you encourage your dog to keep her head down and scent a track, instead of allowing her to just go looking for the item?

She's a hoover hound

She was so het up about her breakfast going missing that she was keen as to find it. I kept it pretty short to start off with, and if I remember correctly, I think I started hiding her meal inside and asking her to find it before I moved it outside and started increasing distances/putting corners in etc.

I really don't think that I ever trained her to put her head to the ground (in the very initial stages), it was more like as things got more complicated, she had to rely on her nose to find her breakfast.

[miamay]

This is interesting. I am thinking of doing tracking with my 4mth old lab. Looked at the showing but not too sure about that. How do you start? Is it with obedience classes? My Pup is a guts totally food driven so fugure he would do Ok at this?

[Rom]

This is interesting. I am thinking of doing tracking with my 4mth old lab. Looked at the showing but not too sure about that. How do you start? Is it with obedience classes? My Pup is a guts totally food driven so fugure he would do Ok at this?

Hi Miamay,

Best thing to do is find your nearest tracking club (sometimes they are a part of obedience clubs but sometimes they are just for tracking). You can start going along to trials straight away to learn from people. You can volunteer to be a track layer or learn to steward, you learn heaps that way.

If you go to the state controlling body in the state that you're in they will probably have a list of affiliated tracking clubs so that you can find one. Which state are you in?

It might also help to get a hold of the tracking rule book so that you know what to train for.

[miamay]

I live in Newcastle NSW

[Rom]

Try one of the contacts on this page:

http://www.dogsnsw.org.au/region-hunter

There aren't any tracking clubs listed in the Hunter region, but that doesn't mean that they don't exist. One of the obedience clubs listed will know.

[Gamby]

My suggestion is that you go to the Tracking Club of Victoria's Web Page and visit some of the tracking links

I like the following page as it has a lot of interesting articles on tracking.

http://www.uwsp.edu/psych/dog/work2.htm

I have also done a google search for tracking training and found some really good information.

Tracking is very rewarding for the dog and handler as it is a natural thing for the dog to do and the handler is in awe of what the dog is doing on a track.

We enter the dogs world when they are tracking, we as handlers just need to let the dog know what we want them to do by standing still if they are off the track and moving forward once the dog is on the track.

The handler MUST know exactly where the track goes, if not then the dog can have fun following the scents it wants to follow instead of being shown what scents it is supposed to follow.

No obedience words are to be used. the only words that need to be said depending on what work you are going to use are Track on, Seek or Find it.

Wendy

TCh Miss Annabell

Poruse Diamond Dealer TD

[Rom]

Tracking is very rewarding for the dog and handler as it is a natural thing for the dog to do and the handler is in awe of what the dog is doing on a track.

Ain't that the truth!

There is nothing like being on the lead of a dog that is working the track well. For many other doggy things that we take part in, the dog enters our world and we train them. In tracking we enter the dogs world and the dog trains us.

Very well put Gamby!

[Gamby]

Hi

I forgot to say that when first starting tracking the tracks should be straight lines with no corners in it at all.

The dog should be stopping at the socks that have been placed on the track and not necessarily taking the food fromt he sock

Once the dog is happily going out on a straight track and not worrying about the rewards on the track and only going to get the REWARD at the end then it is time to start doing Horse shoe turns.

Again once the dog is doing them perfectly then it is time to bring the turns back slowly to become 90 degree turns.

In the mean time you need to play find the sock game with your dog. If you intend to enter tracking trials in the future your dog need to indicate the sock. not just look at it as it is on the track but actually stop at the sock.

I drop sock all over the house, outside on a walk, and praise the dogs when they pick it up.

I now have a sock thief who will pinch socks no matter where they are.

Wendy

[Staranais]

Thanks for the links Wendy, I'll have a look at them, hopefully there will be something useful there.

I'm not using food right now, have been using a toy as a motivator, as this is the way that both tracking groups I attended suggested. So have been doing short straight tracks with the toy as the article. Haven't introduced other articles yet.

We're unfortunately not going to be able to enter tracking trials, since my dog cannot do any of the jumps required (he's an older dog with arthritic front legs). Just doing this for my own education and entertainment!

[Gamby]

Thanks for the links Wendy, I'll have a look at them, hopefully there will be something useful there.

We're unfortunately not going to be able to enter tracking trials, since my dog cannot do any of the jumps required (he's an older dog with arthritic front legs).

Ummmm what jumps are you talking about?

The only jumps that are on the track would be if the track was in the bush and the dog had to go over a log of wood.

As you don't use food rewards are you laying the track and having someone else take your dog on lead to track you?

There are so many different ways you can do to get the dog intereseted in tracking.

Most of all you the handler hase to be able to read the dog as to whether it is on the track or not. That and not moving forward before the dog has committedd to the track are the most important things that should be taken notice of.

the corners once you get up to doing them the secret is to watch the dog and it will indicate ever so slightly with a turn of its head and then it will check out the other direction then come back onto the turn.

Oh no you have started me, I never shut up when talking about tracking, I love it and I'm so sorry I never knew about it umpteen years ago.

I only started dog training 12 years ago and still have heaps and heaps to learn.