Penny Scott-Fox | Pressure in Scent Work — How It's Affecting Everyone and What We Can Do

When you go to a scent work camp or an all-day seminar, how do you get the most out of it? What stops people from fully committing to new ideas? And when you leave with a notebook full of things to try, what do you actually do with all of it? This episode was recorded live on the last day of the Penny Scott-Fox Scent Work Camp at Galway Downs in California. I'm joined by Penny and fellow instructor Jeff McMahon. In addition to how to get the most out of an experience like this, we talk about three of the exercises from camp, what they were designed to teach, and what else people took away from the exercises. What we talk about: What stops people from fully committing to new ideas at camp, and why it's more complicated than just being resistant to change The difference between going in with a competition mindset and going in with a learning mindset Projecting onto your dog, and what it really means when you say you want your dog to have a positive experience Breaking old habits and building new ones, and what self-awareness has to do with it Trade expectation for appreciation The breed genetics distance challenge, dogs off leash 70 feet from a hide, and what each breed did with that The lesson inside the lesson, what Scot took away that had nothing to do with breed tendencies The "What-if Game", where it came from, what it teaches, and some of the scenarios from this camp Why nose work should probably be called nose fun The 80 box challenge, the spiral grid pattern, and what being a teammate has to do with finding the hide What to do with a notebook full of ideas when you get home What lights Penny and Jeff up when they see it happen

If the journey with your dog in this sport is the priority, success can fall into place for any team. And Caroline Oldham puts a lot of effort into focusing on the journey. And doing so helps both the dog and handler achieve their goals. She also talks about her crate-to-crate ritual and why she does it, what your dog's breed group tells you about how they search, building handler grit, and a start line tip she thinks will make a difference for most teams. What We Talk About Caroline's pack, Timber the Welsh Springer, Kate the Malinois who made her a planner, and Rebarre the yellow lab she planned a year before she got her What training a Malinois teaches you that no other breed will Breed groups and what they tell you about how your dog searches The dog is always learning whether or not you're teaching, and what Caroline did with that idea the first hour she had Rebarre Your dog is perceiving odor, not just smelling it, and why that reframe changes how you handle The toy basket mistake and why all good things should come from you Clarity, no gray days, black and white rules that hold even when you don't feel like training The one treat that is only for the discovery of odor Crate to crate, what the ritual looks like from the hotel to the search area to the car ride home What success looked like with the first dog and what it looks like now Two stories about what it looks like to drive home from a trial and call it a success even when you don't do as well as you wanted Handler grit and what it takes to keep your rituals in place when everything is falling apart The self-care coach on her training team and why the handler is half the partnership Seven questions with Caroline, including her signature distractor, the start line tip she thinks will make a difference for most teams, and what her dog would say about her in one word

Joanne Soyke had a Border Collie named Flip who finally found a sport that let him use his powers for good rather than evil. From that moment, from competing to training to judging, she's made it her mission to bring the gift of scent work to every dog since. That mission is rooted in something she comes back to throughout this conversation. Dogs let us into their world when they search. They share something with us that we can barely comprehend, and the more we learn to listen, the richer that experience gets for the dog and for us. She also talks about the tools that help you get there. And a mantra she borrowed from Jeff McMahon that she takes to every start line: I'm grateful for whatever the dog wants to share with me today. What we talk about: Joanne's origin story, a border collie named Flip who finally got to use his powers for good instead of evil CARAT, the Suzanne Clothier assessment tool that changed how Joanne sees every dog she works with The over-aroused Doberman and the start line routine she built around him The terrified rat terrier who went from scared of a box to knocking them across the room Judging philosophy, fun and fair, not trying to trick you or your dog How the environment dictates the difficulty of the hides she sets The sunshine through the windows she didn't notice and what that moment taught her about judging. What's actually going through her head when she's watching you run The blind hide exercise that builds your ability to read your dog Why your one step after finding a hide might be costing you a converging Trusting your dog and sharing the responsibility of the search Are you trying to trial today or for the next 10 years The mantra she takes to every start line Seven questions with Joanne, including who in her pack keeps her humble, the wedding line, and what her dog would say about her in one word

Melissa Sowa has been judging since buried hides had to be placed using a drill. She's competed through Summit in NACSW and detective in AKC, and judges for AKC, C-WAGS, and USCSS. When she talks about what works and what doesn't in this sport, she has seen it from just about every angle there is. And a lot of what she comes back to is the same idea. Take your time. At the start line. Covering your search area. Moving up the levels. Paying your dog. It shows up everywhere in this conversation and in everything she sees as a judge. We also spend a lot of time on the handler side of things, because in scent work we talk a lot about training the dog but there is just as much to work on as the human half of the team. What we talk about: Detective search coverage, what covering an area really means, and what Melissa does before she calls finish One hide syndrome, why it's real, what causes it, and what to do about it How competing at Summit changed how detective search areas feel to her Memory as a skill, she said she has a horrible memory and walked us through exactly how she trained herself out of it How you start the search is how it's going to go What organizational psychology taught her about rewarding her dog The pay discrepancy between training and trialing and what to do about it Don't rush the levels, why staying and getting more practice can make a real difference Why you might pay for a lack of nos at the lower levels What she sees handlers do that costs them Qs, things that have nothing to do with the dog Influencing your dog, her thoughts, and how she idiot proofs her own dogs in training USCSS and the stupid handler trick, yes this is a real competition element Two judge stories, one involving a metal detector, one involving a monsoon Seven questions with Melissa, signature distractors, what her dogs would say about her, and what happened when she played a kitten meowing and frogs chirping as audio distractors at trials

Dianna Santos came to scent work through a dog-aggressive Doberman who needed a reason to be a dog. Zeus couldn't go for walks. He couldn't be around other dogs. His world was shrinking, and so was hers. What happened when he started searching changed him. It also changed how she thinks about this activity: who it's for, what it can do, and why she believes every dog with a nose deserves to play it. She went on to build Scent Work University and produce over 140 episodes of the All About Scent Work podcast. When I asked her to distill all of those conversations down to some themes that keep coming up, she landed on odor will humble you and focus on the dog. What she said about the first one felt like she'd been following me around with a notebook. The second is a good paradigm for all of us to remember. We also get into something many competitors wrestle with: how much involvement the handler should have, and what that balance actually looks like in a search. And if you have a reactive or dog-aggressive dog, Dianna has a lot worth hearing that might help you. What we talk about: The two themes Dianna keeps hearing from the best in the sport and what they mean for the rest of us The universal handler journey, why it looks the same for almost everyone, and why understanding it helps you push through the hard parts What focus on the dog really means when something is going wrong in a search How much involvement should a handler have, and what finding that equilibrium actually looks like Zeus, a dog-aggressive Doberman, and what scent work gave him that nothing else could The choice point, what it means for any dog to choose the work over whatever else is pulling at them What scent work surfaces about your dog during training and how to address it outside of a search so it stops costing you in the ring Dogs with challenges, reactive, fearful, dog aggressive, and what perspectives and approaches can actually help How closed off a handler's life can become around a difficult dog, and what starts to open up Scent work as the activity, not just the sport, and why Dianna will go to her grave defending every dog's right to play it Seven questions with Dianna, including what still delights her, the most rewarding thing someone has ever said to her, and the piece of advice that stuck