Scentpad Portraits

Let's look at some more dogs from the seminar working on scent pads. Dogs at the seminar ranged from 11 weeks old (above) to dogs that have been tracking for years. Check out that nose-down behaviour on Wes's puppy in the picture above. Fantastic!
The scentpad and start information shared by Joanne Fleming is timely for me as it is a weak area in my traning. I asked about re-training a 9-year-old dog - is River really NINE? The answer being start from scratch and train her like a puppy. Make the scent pad have lots of value, by spending time there. Puppies might accept kibble, but a dog at River's age and with her experience might like tastier treats. I have definitely trained the scent pad with all of my dogs - but usually by pointing to it, and also by walking the dog up the way I walked up (or the tracklayer) and sometimes, lying the dog down in front. In Caden's case, I heard that lying him down may just create frustration. River does have a habit of shooting off like an arrow, so having a 'dead zone' around the scent pad so she sticks to it (Caden too) is a great idea!