Thread: Training scents

Anyone use these and/or can recommend where to get them from?

Of absolutely no use whatsoever.....

Agreed.

What are you after?

Deer and duck? Would have thought it a great way to train dogs nose? Hiding scent laced decoy

Buy a throw dummy ,once they have mastered that , I then introduce wings to the dummy tie them on , they get the scent from them . Don't use a decoy as is too hard to carry and will prob promote a hard mouth . Your mates won't be impressed when your dog retrieves the decoy spread either. Frozen whole pigeon works for scenting ,pointing etc but not to early. A piece of deer skin off the rump is what I use as well

Your dog doesn;t need to "learn to use it's nose" though it will get better at deciphering what it tells him as time goes on... that part of hunting we have almost no part in except for allowing them access to it. Your job as the trainer is to train the dog to use those natural abilities for you and with you.

All of my early training with dogs is just my own scent recognition... is bloody handy later on... brick has found a dropped cellphone of mine, a radio telephone on a pheasant shoot... lose it and he finds it... they will never not recognise game scent once they've hunted and just don;t need to be taught that.

A SAR trainer I worked with down south once had her dog find her a bobby pin she had dropped in a huge paddock while setting up a search!!! Took us a whiel to figure out what he was indicating on, it was that small. So cool.

Saying you want to train your dogs to use it's nose is like saying you want to train your kid to use it's eyes. It doesn't work that way.

I believe it is actually counter productive and a lot of people end up handicapping their dogs by overdoing things.

If you think about pigeons, they stink relative to real wild game birds. They are much easier for a dog to wind. With pointing breeds in particular this is a problem because the dog has much more scent up it's nose before establishing point which will lead them to wanting to get far too close to wild birds before pointing.

They are useful to get a young dog pointing staunchly and doing steadiness but overworking a dog on pigeons before working them on the real thing will make them too reliant on strong scent and make them bump birds. Once a dog has wild bird experience they learn the difference between the two so it's not as much of a problem but even still with all my dogs, after they have a few traps to get them staunch and steady they only see pigeons at trials and the odd time to brush up on their manners.

The same concept is true for dragging deer hides. Dragging a whole hide leaves a veritable highway of scent. Nowhere near an accurate representation of the real thing. Hide drags to dogs are easy and boring. I expect any pup with any talent whatsoever to be able to do them in their sleep. Over training on these tracks can make them lazy about tracking, or bore them into disinterest, or get them in the habit of running tracks too fast so they can't track accurately in the real world when the tracks are harder.

The same concepts apply to frozen/thawed birds, they stink. To illustrate the point take an experienced dog that you've done real wild bird work with and put out pigeons/frozen stuff out for them. They will wind the stuff at far greater distances than they do the real thing. It isn't realistic.

I do a very limited amount (once or twice at most) with a wing and/or a small patch of deer/rabbit hide on a string just to get the pups generally familiar with the basic concept and smells and make sure they aren't morons. Aside from that I think the best nose training is just getting them out there in the paddocks/bush. They will learn to use their noses just fine on their own without being flooded with scent.

If you want them I'm pretty sure I've got some wings/hides etc in the freezer you can have but I would caution you against over doing it.

Sorry should have said dummy, not decoy.

What you say about the dog becoming familiar with you own scent, that's exactly what I'm trying to avoid. I want my dog to find deer and ducks not my bloody cellphone or hairpin. If introduce the target scents from an early age and have him focus on deer and ducks while training with a dummy as opposed to distractions like rabbit and possum. Seems logical to me that I'm channeling his focus on those species I want him to target!?!?

Originally Posted by RCGSP

Saying you want to train your dogs to use it's nose is like saying you want to train your kid to use it's eyes. It doesn't work that way.

I believe it is actually counter productive and a lot of people end up handicapping their dogs by overdoing things.

If you think about pigeons, they stink relative to real wild game birds. They are much easier for a dog to wind. With pointing breeds in particular this is a problem because the dog has much more scent up it's nose before establishing point which will lead them to wanting to get far too close to wild birds before pointing.

They are useful to get a young dog pointing staunchly and doing steadiness but overworking a dog on pigeons before working them on the real thing will make them too reliant on strong scent and make them bump birds. Once a dog has wild bird experience they learn the difference between the two so it's not as much of a problem but even still with all my dogs, after they have a few traps to get them staunch and steady they only see pigeons at trials and the odd time to brush up on their manners.

The same concept is true for dragging deer hides. Dragging a whole hide leaves a veritable highway of scent. Nowhere near an accurate representation of the real thing. Hide drags to dogs are easy and boring. I expect any pup with any talent whatsoever to be able to do them in their sleep. Over training on these tracks can make them lazy about tracking, or bore them into disinterest, or get them in the habit of running tracks too fast so they can't track accurately in the real world when the tracks are harder.

The same concepts apply to frozen/thawed birds, they stink. To illustrate the point take an experienced dog that you've done real wild bird work with and put out pigeons/frozen stuff out for them. They will wind the stuff at far greater distances than they do the real thing. It isn't realistic.

I do a very limited amount (once or twice at most) with a wing and/or a small patch of deer/rabbit hide on a string just to get the pups generally familiar with the basic concept and smells and make sure they aren't morons. Aside from that I think the best nose training is just getting them out there in the paddocks/bush. They will learn to use their noses just fine on their own without being flooded with scent.

If you want them I'm pretty sure I've got some wings/hides etc in the freezer you can have but I would caution you against over doing it.

Thanks I can see the logic here.

So I've trained my dog to follow a deer blood trail to a deer skin , time and time again . Are you saying I've wasted my time ? . I could have used an old sack and droplets of engine oil ?

Horses for courses. Does your dog point possums and rabbits when you are hunting deer, maybe that's what you want?

Originally Posted by Dangerous Dan

Horses for courses. Does your dog point possums and rabbits when you are hunting deer, maybe that's what you want?

Yes he does point possums and rabbits that's why I want to reward him for pointing or scenting my target species in training . Am confused now . How else do you reward , if you hunt a area it's got 50 possums and 1 covey of quail say . You have trained to find dummy with quail wings is that going to encourage the dog to work the feather not the possums.?

Originally Posted by Munsey

So I've trained my dog to follow a deer blood trail to a deer skin , time and time again . Are you saying I've wasted my time ? . I could have used an old sack and droplets of engine oil ?

You haven't wasted your time if you enjoyed the exercise.

I did this a bit with my dog before I get get her out on to the real thing. Mainly for something to do with her. Even laid one out, and went back the next day, after it had rained overnight. I was pretty impressed with that.

But, when we got out in the bush, and she got onto a real blood trail, that was impressive. The change in her body language when she first hit it, following the trail, losing it, backtracking and eventually finding the deer showed me that the skin drags hadn't really taught her anything, they were just something to do with her that was a bit different.

Since when did you have a dog Dan? What have you got? If you like I can get you some deer skin to train with. Pictures too please.