I hope your January has been good, that you’ve managed to have some fun with your dog. My garden is full of snowdrops and bulbs peaking up through the soil. Spring is approaching and I’m deep into planning for the rest of the year. I’ve been busy planning new projects and updating my Detector Dog School. In case you missed the changes, here are the headlines:
Coming up . . .
New: TDS Search Tracker
Keeping track of your searches is the best way to make a record of your scentwork progress. It stops you repeating the same old searches, using the same old hiding places. You can see at a glance how long your dog is working for and what sort of finds she is locating. It can be difficult, if not impossible to remember the details of every search. Especially hard when using mixed materials, varying search locations and keeping hides fresh and new. But with this simple to use Search Tracker you don’t have to remember.
You can print it out as often as you like, adding new sheets every week or month depending on how many searches you do. Pin them to your fridge or place them to a folder so that you can see at a glance what you’ve done and where you need to go next. Chart duration, location and temptation. See what, where and why your dog finds some targets easily while others pose more of a challenge. Set and achieve goals, work out issues and celebrate successes using the TDS Search Tracker.
Detector Dog School Updates
The Specialist Searches are back as stand alone courses. Last year they were only available as part of a course bundle. These bundles are ways for you to buy a set of courses at a lower price. But students told me that they preferred these particular courses as stand alone. This means that if you fancy a quick course at a low price, you can now enrol on one of 4 specialist search courses. Work your way through them all in turn, or choose ones that you’ve not tried yet. Simple, quick, great value and great results. Click the buttons below to find out more about each course.
Price drops
I’ve reduced the price of some of the courses and bundles that include them. I want to give more people the opportunity to take these courses. I believe them to be of huge value to you in both your scentwork and your day to day life with your dog.
Increasing the Challenge
This course is rung three in the learning ladder, following on from Teach Your Dog to Sniff! and Essential Scentwork Skills. It’s where I share how to reduce the scent picture, how and why to use blank searches, how to work outdoors and maintain engagement and fun while increasing the scentwork challenge. I’ve reduced the price of the course by £40, quite a drop I think you’ll agree.
Scentwork Support Skills
This is my general training course, suitable for all ages and all levels of experience. Here is where I share the foundation skills that give your dog freedom, agency and pleasure while enhancing your relationship and confidence in her. In the many years that I taught dog training classes, the most valuable skill I passed on was how to play with your dog, how to help her understand why engaging with you is so rewarding.
Once you’ve got a playmate everything else is easier. Recall to retrieving and everything in between. This course gives you all the tools to teach your dog what would take several in person courses to learn. In this single course you can really hone in on the exercises that will make both your lives easier. Once this solid foundation has been laid, you can move on to any activity, but especially scentwork, confident in your relationship and your trust in each other.
I’ve reduced this course by a whopping £51 because I want it to be accessible to everyone. You’d be hard pushed to find such a comprehensive course anywhere else for just £99. Plus you get lifetime access to the course so you can review the footage whenever you need a reminder. And you can download the course notes that accompany each lesson.
In the course you’ll see footage filmed exclusively for this course. You’ll see a variety of breed types learning the skills, and a variety of ages and experience. Watch puppy terrier Ettie learning new skills for the first time. And experienced matriarch labrador Cherry practising more advanced skills.
I’m keen for folks to know about this course as I know just how useful these core lessons are. It’s not just for scentworkers, it’s for all dogs. So please, if you know someone with a new dog, new pup or who is looking for help with improving their dog’s reliability and responsiveness, please tell them about this course.
What do you think?
I’m proposing to add some cohort based courses to the school and would love your thoughts. Cohort based courses mean that you will be in the company of other students learning the same skills at the same time. You will be able to share your searches, your experiences, your questions and your thoughts about the training by interacting with fellow students and with me.
The courses will have defined start dates and student numbers will be limited to enable everyone to use the community without being overwhelmed by messages and content. They will be set length. For example, the course might run for 6 weeks, with me encouraging students to work together at the same pace. That way everyone gets the most from the cohort based model. But hey, if life gets in the way of your training, you can complete them at your own pace.
Before I embark on this new type of course, I need to know if it’s something you would like, something you’d value. To help me decide if this is right for us and to aid me in designing the type of course you want, can I ask you to take my super short survey? It would mean a lot to have your feedback. And please share it with other doggy folks. I’d like to spread the net wide and gather as many responses as I can. The survey will end in two weeks, on 16th February.
In the meantime, I’ll keep working away at producing more content, more useful and inspiring resources to keep us all happy and motivated to keep on sniffing!