For a dog like Richard Parker, building his love for the game was key. He needed confidence and autonomy to truly flourish – and flourish he did! Clare and I frequently chat about handling and the important role it plays in our success. When she told me she was drafting an article, I asked if I could share it here. The timing was perfect too, as I’m currently teaching my online course NW335: Nosework Handling Insights and Improvements at Fenzi Dog Sports Academy.

by Clare Groom

When we talk about “handling” in nosework, it typically refers to the movement of our own body through space while the dog searches. It’s also used to indicate how much direction the human gives to the dog during the course of the search.

Any discussion about handling has to include what we may or may not be communicating to the dog by our movements and whether those communications are what we intend. Additionally, whether our handling creates pressure – intentional or not.

I like to expand the definition of handling as something more all-encompassing: a principle by which we train our dogs and how we want to foster their love of searching.

When I train dogs for scentwork, what I actually want is a hunting dog. A dog that cares enough about odour to hunt for it. Simple, right? Well, not really, when you see many dogs “searching,” they are often trained as “odour confirmation” dogs. Which is fine if you work in an airport and you’re checking baggage

My handling is very much influenced by the desire to perform as little unnecessary movement as possible while staying connected with my dog: neither overtly directing the search nor simply eavesdropping on the dog’s work.

It’s my firm belief that all our movement is “noise” to dogs if it’s not communication. So they’re often stuck in the position of having to ask themselves, “Is this a cue, or is this just rubbish? Do I ignore this or do I respond?”

At its most basic, handling is just how we move in relation to our dogs while they get on with the job, but it can include how we “manage” a search area.

Nosework Is a Game

Ultimately, nosework is a game we play with our dogs, and all decent games have a set of rules. They aren’t just out sniffing around for birch in their own time the way they might sniff for food if we throw it in the grass.

Sometimes we’re encouraged to handle in a way that avoids telegraphing to the dog the location of the hide. If we are handling consistently then we have no need to try and act like we have no idea where it is located.

Attempting to handle in a manner that pretends to the dog that we have no idea where the hide is located is misguided.

They see us getting the odour ready and setting up for the game, plus we confirm when they find it, so I can’t believe that they do not know that we know where it is. But we are playing a game, and the rules of the game are that it’s the dog’s responsibility to find the hide.

My goals and concept of handling, in the expanded definition, is that I want my dogs to take charge of the game, whether or not we think they are fooled by our handling. And you can only take charge of a game if you understand it completely, have confidence in your understanding of it, and feel motivated to play.

Motivation and Confidence

Our responsibility is to create motivation, from the very first presentation of the odor during the conditioning phase, to the types of puzzles that hone their efficiency and skill, and their “if this, then that” knowledge of how odour moves. And to promote confidence.

To my mind, the most effective way of allowing the dog to learn is to participate in the game with them, but not interrupt the process.

As humans, we are notoriously unaware of what we’re doing, whether that’s hand gestures or odd body movements.

Most animals communicate with very deliberate postures and expressions, whereas we spend a lot of time in our heads or communicating verbally or in writing. We can’t not be human, and we can’t be robots any more than we can expect our dogs to be.

I don’t know about you, but I could never solve tricky math questions with talk radio blaring in the background.

Body Language Is Communication

Given that dogs pretty much notice every movement we make, our movement needs to be deliberate – deliberate until it’s simply second nature, because that’s where we’re really trying to get.

It’s a bit like a young horse rider learning to perfect her seat by spending multiple hours on the lunge, only taking the reins when the seat is independent and balanced. Once that is the case, the rider is able to influence the horse deliberately and not disrupt his balance.

Our goal in handling is to avoid disrupting the balance of how the game is playing out. Our dogs, however independently they’re searching, are aware of our presence, and it’s our job to ensure that our movement means what we want it to mean.

That if we choose to influence a direction or make a suggestion that we can do it seamlessly without disrupting the flow or “cadence” of the search. We create clarity in how we move so that the game becomes a give-and-take based on our astute observation.

Think about being on a walk. We like our dogs to check in and be aware of where we are.

If we stop somewhere, it’s almost a given that we don’t expect them to keep ranging out further and further. Another example is if we run backwards to teach our puppy to recall or we step back to teach a front. Why do we want the dog to ignore those cues in the context of searching?

On top of our deliberate (or otherwise) movement is our arousal state or stress level when searching: our impatience, frustration, feelings of helplessness when the dog appears not to be playing our game, especially when we’ve travelled far and paid for a trial, and multiple other emotions that our dogs pick up and respond to all the time.

It’s my opinion that our goal for handling is that we establish a communication system that creates clarity for the dog.

The question isn’t whether we influence our dogs – we do, whether we realize it or not – but whether our handling fosters the outcomes we want.

And to know that, we must first define what we want from our handling: how and when we want to speak to our dogs during a search.

Humans have been hunting with dogs for millennia, and as such, it’s part of our history with these animals: collaborating on a mutually beneficial arrangement.

Handling during a search is a silent language between the dog and the human, and for that, we need to learn how to speak it so we can show our dogs what it means.

We play this game without lots of word signals but with plenty of body language cues, because whether we like it or not, that’s what we’re doing. And a barrage of random cues does not help promote focused searching.

Form, Function, and Familiarity

We have to start with learning foot placement and orientation because before we can implement the overall type of handling we aspire to, we need to learn the “form.” 

Without this form, which is often developed by either self-flagellation via video review or an instructor gently saying, “Would ya quit walking backwards?” we aren’t able to be present and intentional in our movements and thus our communications.

We have to first train the nuts and bolts of where we want ourselves to be and how we want to maintain that positioning. And then we can weave it into how our deviation from that communicates and what it communicates – the function.

“Anchoring” is an easy example. We often stand in place to prevent the dog from leaving the arbitrary boundaries of the search area and this becomes a way of communicating. If we stand still in one place randomly and without thought then how does the dog know what it means?

Only when we have mastered how to control our own body movements and keep them in an intentional, consistent – therefore familiar – position in relation to the dog can we refine what our movements actually mean to the dog.

For example, if we want to train a dog who runs into a paddock to find and retrieve six items while we wait at the gate, that’s fine: so long as that’s what we train. 

But if today I stand at the door and let the dog go in, tomorrow I follow at a sensible pace, and the next day I manhandle with a combination of leash and directional cues, what does that dog learn from all this? Well, that we’re quite random, for one.

For the dog to have clarity, he needs to know what to ignore and what to respond to. If our handling is so “noisy” that the dog is compelled to simply tune everything out, then when we do wish to communicate, how does he know?

Building Success in Training

In training, we don’t need to be “influencing” the dog – we are training him, honing his skills, letting the hide placement create patterns of expectation and for odor to lead the search.

One of our main jobs is to observe. Observe what the dog does from the time he is released to when he finds the hide.

So many folks are focused on what happens AT the hide, and handling becomes “waiting for the hide” when in reality, the real information is what happens from the start line onwards.

When training, I believe the dog needs the opportunity to build their understanding of how odor moves in the environment. That requires a conscious process of gradually introducing complexity – but not in a linear manner, in a manner that is progressive.

Too often, I see teams overfacing their dogs or not knowing when to abort. Or they’re not patient enough to let the dog figure it out. Handlers change their emotive state from one of engagement with what is happening to attachment to outcome: “why can’t he find this hide!”

When we are training it’s key to run known hide placements, not simply “practice” blind hides. This allows the opportunity to see when the dog is not sourcing, leaving a hide, or struggling to solve a puzzle.

Part of the purpose of training is to learn how our dogs process information and how they behave when they are searching – and we learn their telltale COBs: changes of behavior.

And handler COBs are just as real – I see them all the time. Dogs read our COBs much faster than we read theirs!

I’ve seen handlers give away hides without realising it and even in blind searches, the dog knows when you change your usual behaviour. You may think you’re being neutral, but chances are, you’re not.

There is handling that makes sense, and handling that doesn’t. 

The main issue isn’t what style you choose, it’s whether you’re doing it intentionally or just reacting randomly. 

More often than not, what we see as poor handling is not by design it’s by being inconsistent with our body language without even knowing it.

The goal should always be: clarity, consistency, and partnership.

When the dog is searching, he “sees” with his nose a much different picture from what we see with our eyes. And when those two are combined in harmonious connection, the results can be nothing short of astonishing.

Thank-you Clare for sharing your insights and experience. I wanted to share two videos of Richard Parker that display his skills and confidence. Clare’s handling is supportive, giving him the freedom to take the lead in the way he does best.

This first video shows him finding 10 hides in a tight and cluttered space. Clare stays oriented to him and knows he can cover this space better than she would if directed.

This second video is in a large pasture – 4 hides. You could never manage an area of that size as efficiently as Richard Parker!

To learn more about supportive handling and how to build odor-driven search skills, come join us at Fenzi Dog Sports Academy:  NW335: Nosework Handling Insights and Improvements. Working spots are full, but plenty of room to audit.  I’m lucky to have another New Zealander working with me as my TA – Sarah Rida. Her voice over reviews are not to be missed! Registration closes on August 15th.