Training a non-sporting dog...

[Marker]

I've started training her already. After a fair bit of research i've decided to forego focusing on/worrying about scent. It seems like most experts end-game in shed hunting training is to switch the dog away from relying on their nose, and focusing on using their eyes more than. But they buy quite a bit of that antler wax early-on, to give the training antlers scent.

Well, since i don't go shed hunting during the time the deer are dropping their antlers (too busy with work and then maple syrup season) most of the time i'll be out the antlers will be weathered and mostly scentless.

So, I'm going to stress the visual training much more early on.

Visual training is only to get them started and understand the 'game', this may take only a few sessions, after the dog understands what you want you can start to incrementally hide parts of the antler until it is all hidden. Durring this time you can also introduce a variety to your training sessions, change the location, time of day, etc. Add in as much variety as you can so your dog is not being trained to search only in one specific situation.

Remember to keep it fun for the dog, short repeated finds are much better than long hard finds to create drive.

[Sharon]

Sharon, is that JRT a male or female? I'm looking for a special dog and I think the infusion of your JRT to a setter could be the cat's meow.
Just think, if the hunter misses the shot the JRS goes right for his throat. Shooting would improve expeditiously once you got out of the hospital.
If you were out with one dog and a thief tried to take the other dog in your truck, you would return to find his digits near your tailgate. Hence, a reformed thief! It might be fun trying to find your JRS but isn't that what GPS trackers are for?
If you have your JRS on point and the other pointing dog failed to back......oh.....never mind.
Remember, I asked you first Sharon!!

LOL I know you and when you're kidding. Get out there and train those dogs!

[welsh]

Visual training is only to get them started and understand the 'game', this may take only a few sessions, after the dog understands what you want you can start to incrementally hide parts of the antler until it is all hidden.

I'd go with that advice ... I doubt a weathered antler is truly scentless to a dog.

[werner.reiche]

I'd go with that advice ... I doubt a weathered antler is truly scentless to a dog.

A dog can smell an old antler - several years old, buried in leaves.
Teaching a dog to hunt for them by site rather than scent would seem strange. Why take away his best tool?
If you were going to train a bird dog, would you ever consider training visual and then going to scent? I don't think so.
Why would finding antlers be different?

My old ESS I trained to find antlers by tossing old antlers in the thickest crap possible. He'd go in and bring them back.
Then he started bringing them back whenever he found them in the bush.

[Oddmott]

A dog can smell an old antler - several years old, buried in leaves.
Teaching a dog to hunt for them by site rather than scent would seem strange. Why take away his best tool?
If you were going to train a bird dog, would you ever consider training visual and then going to scent? I don't think so.
Why would finding antlers be different?

My old ESS I trained to find antlers by tossing old antlers in the thickest crap possible. He'd go in and bring them back.
Then he started bringing them back whenever he found them in the bush.

The argument is that after the wax is weathered off the antler, the antler is as close to scentless as it can get. Dogs have to literally be tripping over it to catch what little scent remains.

Which is why the shed hunting trainers work towards switching their dogs to hunt sheds by sight.

Nothing I'm doing is taking away the dog's ability to smell. And through the repetition of training (and the fact dogs are hardwired to depend on their noses first) the dog will already develop a scent association, no prodding required.

There's no need to spend months/years focusing training in one direction if you're just supposed to switch to something different.

[crackerd]

I'd go with that advice ... I doubt a weathered antler is truly scentless to a dog.

Welsh, maybe you can confirm my intel as received via a British forum: That Cass is planning on importing an entire litter of Romagnolo Lagottos (pl. Lagotti), and after selecting pick for himself, will be distributing the rest of them magnanimously to other members of the Hunt Ontario forum including Spinster and myself and possibly you, for triple-threat non-gundog-but-sorta-gundog work: Sheds, truffles and possibly rubber ducks from his family bathtub up there in the Ontario Canine Wish-List Belt.

MG

[welsh]

My lips are sealed. You'd have to ask Cass.

[Cass]

The argument is that after the wax is weathered off the antler, the antler is as close to scentless as it can get. Dogs have to literally be tripping over it to catch what little scent remains.

Which is why the shed hunting trainers work towards switching their dogs to hunt sheds by sight.

Nothing I'm doing is taking away the dog's ability to smell. And through the repetition of training (and the fact dogs are hardwired to depend on their noses first) the dog will already develop a scent association, no prodding required.

There's no need to spend months/years focusing training in one direction if you're just supposed to switch to something different.

Sorry oddmott but I think you're confused. You would be hard pressed to see someone training their dog to find sheds by sight instead of nose. It starts the opposite - first by sight then by nose. A dog's nose is unbelievable and as werner said they can smell antlers that are old and buried. Their nose is their greatest asset in finding antlers. I use my guy for antler hunting in the off season.

[yellow dog]

Nothing better to watch a dog use it's nose in the field. Unfortunately not all dogs have a good nose.

[Oddmott]

Sorry oddmott but I think you're confused. You would be hard pressed to see someone training their dog to find sheds by sight instead of nose. It starts the opposite - first by sight then by nose. A dog's nose is unbelievable and as werner said they can smell antlers that are old and buried. Their nose is their greatest asset in finding antlers. I use my guy for antler hunting in the off season.

That may very well be. I don't claim to be a dog training expert. But i do research like crazy and pretty much every in-depth training video or article I've consumed in the last 3 weeks begins with encouraging the dog to use it's sniffer early on in the training because that's what dogs typically rely on... but that the end-game goal is to get the dog using it's eyes.

The only people who train their dogs to hunt shed solely on scent are those who are hunting sheds during Feb & March when the sheds are extremely fresh and their scent is quite strong.

This is one video from a reputable trainer (and channel) that's nice and short and gets to the heart of the matter. There are tons of 10, 20 and 30+ minute videos out there as well... and the best ones all end with essentially retraining the dog to use sight.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hO331Ev5L7I