Nosework: Obedience to Odor and Focused Response

This is an excellent course for beginners in the scent detection dog sport. The training concepts in this course will apply to all of the various scent work competitions.

This is the second training course in a series of courses that Leerburg has done on Nosework with Andrew Ramsey.

The goal of this training video is to cover Andrew Ramsey’s methods for teaching a detector dog obedience to odor and a focused response. These are very important skills that every detector dog should know.

This course is laid out to show the training steps for Obedience to Odor (OTO), a Focused Response (FR) in addition to a chapter on the finer points of handling a nose work dog while in training.

In the handler training module of our course, we are going to review the following subjects:

Many dogs have been taught to "give to leash pressure." In our course we explain and demonstrate how to teach a dog to resist leash pressure and stay with the odor source. This is a critical part of developing a focused response. How correct timing in rewards builds to a Focused Response. Introducing the SIT as a final response. We cover footwork and correct leash handling during a search. We cover the difference in handling a lower drive dog vs. a high drive, fast dog during a search. We also show the search pattern to use for a high drive dog.We will cover drive building techniques and why choosing the right reward for each dog is fundamental to a good detector dog. We have an excellent video of Andrew testing a dog's food drive and toy drive. This turned out to be a dog that works for one reward one day and a different reward on another day. The handler's job is to figure out what reward to use in that day's training session. We will discuss how to evaluate a "false indication" along with what a handler needs to do to eliminate an aggressive indication (scratching).

For 10 years I was a K9 handler on our local sheriff's department and drug task force (1990 to 2000). I literally have done thousands of narcotics searches. I cannot tell you how many times during the production of these Nosework DVDs with Andrew Ramsey that I wished I had had this information available back then. The work in these training courses makes me feel like my years as a K9 handler were spent in the dark ages of detector dog work.

While these courses have their foundation in the sport of Nosework, the fact is these exact training methods can be used to train a dog to detect any odor. There is no difference between teaching a dog to detect narcotics, bed bugs, termites, Nosework scents or explosives. It all comes down to what odors the handler chooses to use in their training program.

This DVD was originally released in the Spring of 2012.