Super Sniffer Handbook: A Guide To Scent Training For Medical Alert Dogs

By Debby Kay

Millions of people are affected by medical conditions that need constant monitoring and attention. Man’s best friend, has proven again how valuable a service he can perform in helping to monitor his owner’s condition. Medical alert dog training is a new and fast-growing sphere of dog training, and the program laid out in this book will help amateur and professional alike to develop their dog into a Super Sniffer.

Designed to take a puppy or adult dog from early scent recognition to final proofing, the tools used in this program have proven to be highly successful with hundreds of scent detection dogs around the world.

The Super Sniffer Handbook is strongly focused on Diabetic Alert Dog Training but has applications for other medical detection dogs.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Coveran Publishing House
• Release date: Jan 1, 2013
• ISBN: 9780983785651

Debby Kay

Debby Kay has 40 years of experience as a canine professional and pioneered many firsts in canine scent work. She left her position as a research scientist for the Federal Government to become Training Director of International Detector Dogs Ltd., training the first toxic waste detection dog. She was an early pioneer in training dogs to help ecologists, geologists and field biologists find targeted specimens for their research. Debby trained some of the first classes of dogs and instructors for the ATF explosive dog program in Virginia.

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Super Sniffer™ Handbook. Copyright © 2013 by Debby Kay. All rights reserved.

Printed in the United States of America.

No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without the written permission of the author except in the case of short quotations. For information: Coveran Publishing House.

Limits of Liability and Disclaimer of Warranty

The author and publisher shall not be liable in the event of incidental or consequential damages in connection with or arising out of the furnishing, performance or use of the instructions and suggestions contained in this book.

First Edition 2013

ISBN 978-0-9837856-3-7

Library of Congress Control Number: 2013956460

Design by Nancy McKeithen

DEDICATION

This book is dedicated to the veterinarians, trainers and volunteers at the Penn Vet Working Dog Center whose tireless efforts on behalf of all working dogs is so deeply appreciated; and to my dog Chilbrook Ohlin, who with their guidance is pioneering the use of dogs for ovarian cancer detection.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction

Defining the Role of the Dog

How the Program Works

Sample Collection and Storage

Materials You Will Need

Containers

Collection Procedure

Getting Started

Establishing Your Routine

Training Materials

Introduction to the Target Odor

Proofing—Sniffer Tins

Developing the Alert

Adding Variables

The Time Variable

The Position Variable

The Location Variable

The Final Proofing: The Scent Training Wheel

Introducing Your Dog to the Wheel

Live Alerts and Night Alerts

Missed Alerts and When Your Dog Doesn’t Work

False Alerts

The Value of Time Off

Exercise, Conditioning and Maintenance

Maintenance Training

Appendix A: How to Build the Basic Scent Wheel

Appendix B: Resources for Supplies for Your Medical Alert Dog

Appendix C: Certification

Appendix D: CGC Test

Appendix E: Tip Sheet

Appendix F: Key Milestones

About the Author

Acknowledgments

Index

INTRODUCTION

The challenge for a writer who puts together a training book is how to address the diverse backgrounds of the readers. My specialty in dog training has always been in scent detection work. In writing this book, I want to share what I have learned from training dogs for medical alert work in a way that will be the most helpful to the widest audience. Most of the training I do today is instructing professional trainers on how to teach this specialized scent work to dogs. I do get a fair amount of inquiries, however, from people who want to train their own dogs as well, so my hope with this handbook is to provide information that will be useful to both groups.

I have deliberately not included anything on basic obedience or service dog training. These are specialized areas of training, just as scent training is specialized, and I believe it better to keep my focus narrow and on topic. If you are contemplating for the first time training a service dog, I strongly suggest you do a lot of homework, contact a number of professionals who specialize in that work and discuss your plans, and carefully consider what you are undertaking. In any type of dog training there must be a lifelong commitment to maintaining that training, and with working service dogs this is a huge responsibility. I have a chapter at the end of the book on the maintenance training as another reminder of this commitment.

I had the opportunity many years ago to develop a scent detection program for the Federal government. I drew a lot of experience from that program to form the background to the program presented herein. Every part of the training program has been carefully thought out and tested to ensure the dog and the handler both can progress through the training with the least amount of trouble, the best communication possible, and finally, success in achieving your purpose. The sequencing of some actions might at first seem counterintuitive, but progression is based on my observations of the hundreds of students and their dogs who have gone through my program. This book reflects training methods that we’ve discovered work the best for the majority of the teams.

For no other reason than convenience, I refer to dogs in this book in the male gender; this in no way implies females are not equally as good as males as detector dogs. You will notice a predominance of Labrador Retrievers in the photos. While the Labrador is certainly the most popular detector dog in the world (and for good reason), they are not the only purebred that has successfully been trained for medical detection work. I breed Labradors and so I have many willing models at hand to help with the illustrative photos, but I have trained many purebreds and mixed breeds for this type of work and it is more about the individual dog than the breed. I choose not to get into a discussion of dog selection as this can be a highly controversial topic depending on the school, instructor, breeder or trainer you are talking to. Everyone is going to have an opinion as to what is right. I will say here though, that the degree of success you have with your dog will depend on many different factors. Just as not all people are suited to all jobs, so it goes with dogs. This point is something to keep in mind if you are not meeting with success after a full and sincere effort on your part.

There are some people who prefer to work with puppies and start the scent training at a very young age, usually after weaning. Others wait to begin training with a full-grown dog over one year of age. When I have found there is a difference in the dog’s response based on its age, I try to point that out in either the text or under the one of the Pro Tips you’ll find throughout the text. It is really difficult to generalize for all puppies, because the differences between breeds and even the differences between males and females will create more exceptions to the rules. There are reasons for wanting to train either young puppies or one-year-olds, and I think both are equally valid so you will not see that I favor one over the other.

If you have never done this type of training before, it should become apparent to you very quickly that medical alert training is really one of the few tasks—if not the only task—we ask of dogs that we cannot really train the dog to do. We can show them the scent or condition we wish them to alert on, but there is no way to command a dog to monitor you 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, for the rest of their lives with you. What we ask of medical alert dogs and what they do for us is truly a generous and gracious gesture on their part. I hope you never forget to thank your dog for it, and I wish you success as you undertake this most challenging of tasks.

Debby Kay

Harpers Ferry, West Virginia

Defining the Role of the Dog

What is your dog going to be doing for you? This might seem like a simple question—perhaps even too obvious—but it is really important to define what you expect the dog to do.

People have approached me about using a medical detection dog for a wide array of medical conditions. There are really very few conditions where a specially trained medical alert dog would work effectively. One condition that dogs are very effective in helping to manage is diabetes; seizures are another. There are some cases of digestive disorders that cause conditions similar to diabetes; this is another instance when dogs can be used to help monitor the condition.

One of my students had a client with a medical condition called Polycythemia Vera, which causes the blood to thicken and slows blood flow; this can lead to many complications. He was asked to train their standard poodle to alert when there were changes in the blood stream to help manage the disease. We were not sure if the dog could do this, as obtaining samples is difficult,