The Dog Knows the Odour, Now What? A Detection Dog Training Thought Piece

The dog knows the odour. Now what?

One of the things that has occupied my thoughts for years is this:

What happens once the dog genuinely knows the target odour?

It sounds like a strange question. After all, odour recognition is often treated as the holy grail of detection dog training. We spend countless hours imprinting, pairing odour with reward, testing recognition, and proving that the dog understands what we want it to find.

But once the dog knows the odour, what then?

I often compare it to learning the two times table.

Once you know that 2 × 2 = 4, you know it.

You don't need to keep proving it every day for the rest of your life. The challenge is no longer remembering the answer. The challenge is applying that knowledge to solve increasingly difficult problems.

I think detection dogs are much the same.

Many dogs know the odour long before they become good search dogs.

The distinction may seem subtle, but I believe it is important.

A dog can recognise odour perfectly well and still struggle to acquire it.

A dog can understand exactly what it is looking for and still struggle to find it.

This is where I think we sometimes confuse reacting to odour with searching for odour.

Consider a dog entering a room containing a strong, easily available hide. The odour hits the dog, the dog recognises it, finds the source and indicates.

The dog has demonstrated odour recognition.

But what else has it demonstrated?

Did it show persistence?

Did it solve a problem?

Did it work through uncertainty?

Did it have to hunt for the source?

Perhaps not.

Now consider a different scenario.

A small odour quantity.

A difficult hide.

Weak odour availability.

A large search area.

The dog searches/hunts, acquires a trace of odour, loses it, reacquires it, works through the problem, and eventually arrives at source.

The final indication may look exactly the same.

The journey was very different.

The first dog reacted to odour.

The second dog searched for it.

For me, that distinction lies at the heart of detection work.

Operational dogs rarely enjoy the luxury of ideal training hides. Odour may be weak, buried, contained, contaminated, displaced, intermittent, or simply difficult to acquire.

The challenge is often not recognising odour once it is encountered.

The challenge is finding it in the first place.

This idea sits behind many of the concepts I have trained over the years.

The First Corner Principle.

Blank searches.

Small odour quantities.

Deep hides.

Difficult hides.

None of these are primarily about teaching the dog what the odour smells like.

They are about teaching the dog how to behave when the odour is not immediately available.

They are about creating a dog that enters a search area asking:

"Where is the odour?"

rather than:

"When will I encounter the odour?"

That difference in mindset changes everything.

A dog waiting to encounter odour becomes dependent on the environment providing the answer.

A dog searching for odour becomes responsible for finding it.

Over time, I have found myself increasingly drawn towards dogs that respond to a difficult search with what can only be described as a "hold my beer" attitude.

The hide is harder.

The odour is weaker.

The problem is more complex.

Rather than disengaging or looking to the handler for answers, these dogs seem to become more determined.

The challenge itself becomes motivating.

They don't view a difficult search as a reason to quit. They view it as a reason to try harder.

Perhaps this is one of the reasons I place so much emphasis on difficult hides, small odour quantities, blank searches and independent problem solving.

Not because operational searches are always difficult, but because I want the dog to develop confidence in its ability to solve difficult problems when they arise.

A dog that has repeatedly overcome adversity in training is far more likely to persist when faced with adversity in the real world.

Perhaps this is why some dogs perform exceptionally well in training but struggle operationally.

They become very skilled at finding training hides.

They become very skilled at reacting to available odour.

But they never fully develop the persistence, confidence, and problem-solving ability required to hunt for odour when it is difficult to acquire.

I am not suggesting odour recognition is unimportant. Without it, none of this matters.

But I do wonder whether we sometimes spend too much time teaching dogs what to find and not enough time teaching them how to find it.

Because once the dog genuinely knows the odour, the real work may only just be beginning.

Tom Moir

ScentMasters UK

Trainer. Coach. Student of searching.