Building Duration Without Losing Motivation
What happens when your dog keeps searching, but odor doesn’t show up for several minutes?
Long stretches without encountering odor are becoming an increasingly common challenge in upper-level searches. For teams working toward or competing in Elite and Summit, the ability to stay committed to the hunt through those stretches deserves a deliberate place in the training plan.
But building that ability takes more than making searches longer or placing hides farther apart.
Join Tony Gravley as he breaks down how to develop a dog that continues hunting with purpose and motivation when odor takes time to find. A key distinction: time between finds is not the same as time between odor encounters. A dog may encounter and work odor well before reaching source. Understanding that difference changes how we assess duration and how we train it.
During this webinar, Tony will cover:
- Tracking time without odor: How to assess the time between odor encounters and why simply timing between finds can give you an incomplete picture.
- Building a progressive training plan: How to extend those stretches thoughtfully, with clear goals and manageable increases.
- Recognizing a loss of hunt drive: How to identify when your dog has stopped actively hunting, even if they are still moving through the search area.
- Maintaining motivation: How to build duration while protecting your dog’s enthusiasm, persistence, and expectation of success.
- Training in smaller spaces: Practical ways to develop this skill without access to large buildings or expansive search areas.
As upper-level searches increasingly ask dogs to hunt longer before encountering odor, we need to prepare for that challenge intentionally. Learn how to make sustained hunting a skill you develop, measure, and maintain.
