Bad idea # 7,842: teaching dog to find scent when you're not sure there is scent to find.
I started the hydrated original this evening. There was a lot of water in it, since it was frozen into a little ice plug.
I am more and more convinced that there is no scent in these that Syn can find. Maybe when she has more experience, but right now I believe she is screwing up so badly because she can't find any difference between the sample and the empty bottles.
We did 20 reps, every way I could think of to introduce her to the sample and she did nothing but guess the whole time.
Then I decided to try a different strong scent to see if the problem is simply in her learning a new scent. I got a teaspoon of coffee out of the coffee grinder. I spent 10 reps getting her to touch it 3 times in hand, then 3 times in plain sight on the floor, then hidden in different places on the floor.
Then I put it in the wheel and did 10, 100%. Then I added a piece of kibble to 3 of the neutral bottles. She got the first 3 wrong, indicating the kibble. I gave her a neutral no and asked again each time until she got it right. Once she got it right, she did a double take at a kibble on the next 2 but kept going, and got 100% on the last 7. So the problem does not appear to be her transferring to another scent.
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