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Scentwork: teaching a passive indication

Scentwork UK have a network of trainers who help people to train their dogs to search for scents, in the same way as customs & excise dogs, bomb explosive dogs, search & rescue dogs and medical detection dogs.

One important aspect of scentwork is the "indication" - how the dog shows that they've found the right scent. This indication can be either active or passive. Active indication is where the dog tries to get to the item - for example actually grabbing the article they have found.

In this video, Heather focusses on passive indication, where the dog does a behaviour to indicate that they have found what they were looking for while leaving the article unimpaired. Heather explains, step-by-step, how to teach this and what to do when things go wrong.



Scentwork UK have a network of trainers who help people to train their dogs to search for scents, in the same way as customs & excise dogs, bomb explosive dogs, search & rescue dogs and medical detection dogs.

One important aspect of scentwork is the "indication" - how the dog shows that they've found the right scent. This indication can be either active or passive. Active indication is where the dog tries to get to the item - for example actually grabbing the article they have found.

In this video, Heather focusses on passive indication, where the dog does a behaviour to indicate that they have found what they were looking for while leaving the article unimpaired. Heather explains, step-by-step, how to teach this and what to do when things go wrong.

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