Category: Performance Events ¤
  Author: Linda Lundgren ¤
   Title: Success with Margie's Scent Method ¤

Margie English elegantly describes her method of teaching scent. And by the
way, we are eagerly awaiting Margie's video and scent magnet kit, to be
marketed under the "Margie's Magic Magnets" name <VBG>

Margie and I talked about this method last spring, and I set about teaching
my non (well, at very best semi) retrieving sheltie to discriminate scent. 

Since I didn't have any more than two of the flat give away magnets, I used
what I had. Several different shapes, colors and sizes.  First I taught her
to touch the magnet (already scented) with her nose, and then I put it on
the door with a number (8-9) of other magnets.

It was *immediately* apparent that I could not tell a sniff from an
indication, so I quickly went to rewarding a pawing motion as the
indicator, rather than a sniff. (I now have a dog that scratches
frantically at the refridgerator door - something to keep in mind!)

After the first session, Sassy had great shape discrimination (much, much
better than I actually thought she was capable of) but apparently no idea
about scent. So, I went to Walmart and got 10 photo-magnets. They are
plasic disks that snap apart and back together, designed to insert a photo
inside. Mine are round, but I have also seen them in rectangular shapes. I
put different numbers inside each one so *I* could tell them apart. Because
of their size, shape and the relatively small magnet attached, these are
easy to slide around on the refridgerator door - an important aspect (as
noted below!) They are not totally flush against the surface, which also
allows Sassy to paw them up off the door (that was not intentional, but
rather showed up as a side advantage when I didn't reward her for something
she thought she needed to be rewarded for!)

After the second session, Sassy figured she was supposed to indicate the
magnet at a certain place. So it is really important to start moving them
around IMMEDIATELY. Since I don't want to contaminate the others with my
scent, I used a baggie over my hand when I pushed them around. In addition
to the 'fridge door, I used both the door of the stove and the floor - if I
had a magnetic cookie sheet I would have used that and moved it around the
house so that the location of the "pile" changes as well as the location of
the scented magnet *in* the pile.

To get the dog focused away from the refridgerator, and to give time to
reposition them, I THREW the threat a fair distance away. <G> Otherwise
Sassy stood there and watched me reposition, then went right for it without
checking anything else. (Gee - how many times have you seen a utility dog
do just that in the ring?)

I used Sassy's NRM ("wrong") a couple of times early on, but found that
even though she perfectly understands what that means, in this scenario it
seemed to shut her down. Don't know why - I just stopped using it and let
her figure it out on her own. Once she got the idea, I was able to
reintroduce it as I started variable reinforcements.

Sassy and I have not played with this since last spring - she was not 100%,
but was definitely starting to check for the scent. Guess I should sit down
on the floor and play some more. 

As an aside, and I am not exactly sure how this fits into the equation, I
made sure all the magnets had some scent on them (not mine, somebody
elses.) I want the dog to pick out a certain scent (mine) instead of
picking out the only one that has a scent (any scent.) I ran into this when
teaching scent in the past. I had to completely retrain articles using
non-sterile articles.  When I started matching my first dog in utility,
Jason just picked up the first one that had human scent on it.  By training
on totally (and carefully maintained at that!) sterile articles, and only
rewarding him when he retrieved a scented article, I had taught him to
discriminate between scented and non-scented, rather than to pick out a
particular scent. So now right from the start I make sure the others are
scented by somebody other than myself. In my house that was not an issue,
as the kids play with all the magnets. But it is something to consider when
training by yourself. Incidently, I never worried about cleaning magnets -
I just put "mine" up high out of the reach of little hands. I didn't care
how much (or whose, or even - for that matter - what) scent was on the
others.

Another point to consider would be John Rogerson's idea of increasing the
odds of reinforcement. Scent 9 out of 10, and reward whenever those are
indicated. Slowly reduce the number of scented, and increase the number of
unscented. I have a friend working this method as we speak - and her dog
seems to be getting the idea. She is using regular articles and a retrieve,
but I don't see why it couldn't be combined with the magnet method.

Linda Lundgren
and the Skoof Shelties (including Sassy, the refridgerator-scratching,
magnet-flinging maniac)