# Lab Not Scent Trailing



## Boly (Sep 23, 2008)

Help
I have a 2 1/2 yr old lab that has an excellent nose but just will not scent trail. I have done the usual things to get him to do it but I just cannot get him to do it. He is my first lab to fail at this. He has demonstrated that he has a good nose repeatedly. I need help/ideas. I don't want to get rid of him as he is a great retriever.


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## Ali-MAc (Jul 12, 2013)

Here is what I did with my dog as she had learned to run a search pattern to get downwind of whatever she was supposed to be trailing, as a search pattern succeeded for her she did not need to to learn to trail and that was frustrating me.


Homework
Use a piece of chicken skin or similar, drag a trail across the grass in your yard and hide it out of sight in such a spot that the dog can't get downwind of it. Take the dog to the start of the trail and let them pick up the scent

Fieldwork
Get a couple of dead pheasants/ducks from the freezer, if they are a little "ripe" that helps, also maybe add some scent from a bottle to the bird to make it overpowering

Get some of those little flags they use to mark where pipes/cables are before excavating

Make a nice pile of feathers at the start of the trail and mark it with a flag

Drag the bird on a rope for a good distance scuffing your feet on the ground as you go

About 50 to 60 yards in make a turn (mark with a flag so you can see if the dog turns at the right spot) and continue the scuff drag another 50 to 60 yards.

drop the bird and return by a different route

Take the dog to the start of the trail and let them find the scent

they will likely take off at a run, the reason for such a long drag is that they need to lose and reacquire the trail and work along it zig-zagging across it, you need the turn to show you that even if they look like they are just running around they are in fact kinda following the trail

I put the bird so far out there across or downwind so that the ONLY way the dog could find the bird was to at least be following the general trail for some time, could not just search and find it, if you think they are just still running a search pattern then make the drags longer.


repeat DOZENS of times in lots of training sessions
they will eventually learn to make tighter zig-zags staying about on the trail

worked for me and my mutt, may be useless to anyone else


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## Boly (Sep 23, 2008)

Thanks for the ideas, I will use them and see what he does. These ideas ar close to what I have done but are better methods than mine.


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## Ali-MAc (Jul 12, 2013)

Boly said:


> Thanks for the ideas, I will use them and see what he does. These ideas ar close to what I have done but are better methods than mine.


Key question to answer is

Does he know how to use his nose or not?

Is he finding things but by getting scent on the wind?


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## Boly (Sep 23, 2008)

I'm not sure. The last time I worked him on it I kept him in his kennel so he couldn't see. I laid out a scent trail about 100 yds. long in an arc. I let him out and took him to the trail and told him to get it. This he understands. He took off on the trail at warp speed and almost ran straight to the bumper. he does this in training, but when pheasant hunting he won't trail a bird that I know is there. I really don't know how he is doing it.


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## Ali-MAc (Jul 12, 2013)

Start by dragging dead birds for him to follow (way more interesting than a bumper)

Once he is learning to use his nose by default get live pheasants and clip their wings (I tie a 3 foot length of flagging tape to their leg so I can see where they end up), let it run for a bit and send him on that trail

but like I say, do dozens of dead bird drags first as they are way cheaper


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