The Foundation of Sport Detection

Foundation of Sport Detection Training

266 videos - 25 HOURS 

OF DETAILED INSTRUCTION

There are a number of new dog sports in America in which dogs are trained to detect non-narcotic odors. These sports have become extremely popular. The training for all nose work requires access to a scent work training lab. If you do not have access to an existing training area you will need to put one together for yourself. This is not expensive and can be done in the corner of your garage or basement. If you are brand new to scent work it is important that you know this before purchasing this course.

We filmed 12 handlers and their dogs going through Ericka's first class. Our course contains 266 videos (over 25 hours) of detailed instruction.

You will see handlers of varying skill levels working with dog’s of all ages and temperaments.  We included a 9-week-old Border Collie puppy and a 12-year-old senior Chihuahua loving the work.

Scent work training inherently requires trainers have a friend or assistant during some of their training sessions. It is a mistake to think that someone can train a scent detection dog by themselves, that simply cannot be done. There are times in training when a friend should hold the dog while the trainer works a scent pattern with the dog. There are also times in training when an assistant must be the person who hides the search items. This is called a blind search.

Blind searches are the only way a handler will ever get good at reading their dog during a scent detection competition.

The course includes the following:

• How motivation affects training and how to maximize each dog's motivation
• Hunt drive and how it affects our training plan
• The importance of confidence in the dog, and how scent detection can build confidence
• Selecting the proper reward for training and trials
• Marker training and it's applications in detection training
• Reward placement in training and trials
• Leash handling for training and trials
• Teaching a pre-training and pre-trial ritual
• Why and how we teach a final response, and how we select it
• Introducing odor
• How to avoid false alerts, fringe response, aggressive response, eliminating in the search area, and improper handler help
• When and how to increase difficulty in search problems
• Throughout the course we include problem solving and an extensive section on questions and answers.

The sport of scent detection has changed significantly since Leerburg released its first DVD’s. There are new organizations and rule changes. This course will bring you up to speed on many of the current rules.

Ericka cover the differences, and rules of various venues, such as: the National Association of Canine Scent Work (NACSW), the United Kennel Club (UKC), The Sporting Detection Dog Association (SDDA), Canine Work and Games (C-WAGS), and other up and coming organizations. You will learn commonly used terms for detection training, their meanings, and how they apply them to practical training situations. You will learn to train your dog, your client's dogs, and how to teach clients to train their own dogs.