Back to Scent Discrimination or Why taking a break from training an exercise can help the dog.

I've taken a small break from B.A.T. training with Quinn, I'll meet with my trainer on Thursday.

Last spring, I began working with Quinn on Janice Demello's Around the clock method of teaching Scent discrimination. He'd been doing pretty good, but we hadn't gotten away from using cheese. I'd decreased the amount, but was having a little trouble fading it completely.
About that time, I was diagnosed with a chronic illness and I stopped working on that exercise.

Last night, I decided to see where Quinn was with S. D. I put down a clean article and a scented article and told him to "find mine". He ran out, sniffed them both and brought back the correct one. Yay!

Today, I decided to haul out the whole set up. The first time I put out a clean article and a metal one with scent and a small smear of cheese. He brought me the correct one. I didn't use cheese on the next set up (two clean articles and the scented one). He did great. The third time, he brought me a clean leather article. I said "oops" and took it, but no treat.

I put out another clean article and a minuscule bit of cheese on the scented article. He did great. Back to no cheese, but the time we had 9 articles out, he was bringing me the scented article with no cheese on it. I then switched to the leather article, I did use a bit of cheese on it, I wanted him to get it right.

Then I switched out the leather article I've been using all along, for the clean one he had retrieved before. I scented it, but didn't add any cheese (this article has never had cheese on it). I put them out and rearranged them a bit. He sniffed all the articles and brought the correct one!

I've seen it before, I really think giving the dog a break to process new information really helps him to understand the exercise. Probably a year was a bit long of a break, but I do think it helped Quinn figure it out! I am so happy with my boy.