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boneo
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14-09-2013, 04:07 AM

Working Trials - a question on Scent Squares

I used to do working trials years ago and trained in it for quite a few years but didn't compete (personal choice). I recently had a friend of mine (general training instructor) go on a course to learn more about WT. She came back fully enthused and asked if she could set up a demo at my place for some interested people. Of course I watched but was baffled when she completely foiled the square before sending her dog in.

This really meant that she started to walk from the bottom left-hand post to the bottom RH post, turn 180 back to the LH side on a path immediately next to the one she had just walked, turn at the LH side and walk back to the RH side and continue until she came off at a top corner post.
She assured me this was how a steward would do it according to the 'course'.

Now I'm really going to sound old 'cos in my day the steward did any of the following:

walked around the perimeter lobbing articles in from the side, took a horizontal line across the square, a vertical, or diagonal path across the square and threw in the articles from any of those paths. Occasionally, they walked an M or Z on the square.

Never in my experience at many different venues watching trial enthusiasts did I ever see a steward completely foil a square and saturate every inch with their scent. In early days of training a novice dog, sometimes the very top third of a square might be foiled to get the dog to go out and search the entire area but not like this. It was almost like watching a gun dog being trained to quarter a field.

To me, when her dog was sent in it was tracking from side to side, locating articles as it went. I asked at what stage of training this kind of foiling would cease. Apparantly, it didn't as it was expected that some stewards would do this in trials. Can anyone confirm if this is right and has there been a swing away from the old objective which was to find scented articles in an otherwise 'clean' area?

Sorry its long but hopefully it gives a clear description of the method in question.
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Jenny Olley
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14-09-2013, 09:51 PM
No they aren't laid like that. It does say in the rules the area can be foiled, but I have never known anyone take this to mean the whole area.

Your friend may have understood, some people teach their dog to track in the square as an extra skill, some people would walk from bottom to top in a zig zag placing articles at the top to teach working to the back of the square, she may have seen this being done and misunderstood.
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boneo
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15-09-2013, 03:28 PM
That's what I thought Jenny but obviously, as she paid for this course she thinks she's been correctly taught how to lay a scent square but it just didn't make sense to me n or did it gel with what I had learnt over many years. I began to think I was having a senior moment
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Jenny Olley
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15-09-2013, 03:35 PM
It's a shame for your friend if she has been given the wrong info.
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smokeybear
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28-10-2013, 07:33 PM
You cannot lob in articles from either inside or outside the square, they all have to be placed, which is why many people train their dogs to "track" in the square as of course articles can be no further away from your feet than a yard or so. The amount of foiling that a steward does will depend on the judge, the stake, the ground, the weather etc. And of course some search squares do not even have "sides".

As for being similar to a gundog quartering, that is exactly what it is except a gundog quarters a bigger square.
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