A Scent Work search often gets reduced to one question: did the dog find the hide?
The dog is doing much more than finding or not finding. A full search includes a sequence of behaviors: hunt, odor recognition, sourcing/odor obedience, sourced, decision, communication to the handler/waiting for response, reward cycle, and return to hunt when more work remains.
In this webinar, Judith will break down the Cycle of the Hunt and explain how each phase connects to the next. We will look at what the dog is doing during the hunt, how odor recognition changes the search, how sourcing/odor obedience develops, and what changes when the dog has located source.
We will also look at the decision and communication pieces of the cycle. Locating source and deciding “this is the answer” are not always the same moment. After the dog makes that decision, the dog still needs to communicate with the handler and wait for the handler’s response. This is where many teams need more clarity, especially when handlers want more reliable stickiness at source.
The reward cycle affects what the dog does next. Reward delivery can reinforce the dog’s decision, strengthen communication, support a clean reset, and prepare the dog to return to hunt when more work remains. Handler timing, reward placement, and pressure can strengthen the cycle or reduce clarity.
When handlers understand the full sequence, they can stop treating every training issue as the same problem. A dog who struggles to start or sustain hunt needs a different training plan than a dog who hunts well but loses odor obedience. A dog who locates source, then leaves before the handler responds, needs a different plan than a dog who struggles to return to hunt after reward.
The goal is to give handlers a clearer map of the search. When handlers can identify where the dog is in the cycle, they can better understand what the behavior means, which phase needs training, and how to make more targeted changes.
Topics will include:
- the search as a full sequence of behaviors
- phases of the search
- hunt
- odor recognition
- sourcing / odor obedience
- sourced
- decision
- communication to handler / waiting for response
- stickiness at source
- reward cycle
- return to hunt
- common places the cycle breaks down
- using the cycle to make targeted training decisions
