Judith Guthrie | The Judging Framework That Makes You a Better Competitor

I've learned that if you hang out a little bit with a judge and just sit there quietly, eventually they'll start talking. I had just started out on my scent work journey. I came in to watch — you were judging buried. And I don't know if you knew this, but my mind was blown with the stuff you were talking about. It was stuff I'd never heard of before. Do you remember any of this?

You were sitting there and you looked really interested, so I started explaining what I was seeing and why I was seeing it. And you stayed engaged with me even though you weren't super chatty. So I continued talking.

Yeah, well, I wasn't super chatty because I also like to be respectful of what the judge is doing and what the competitors are doing. This was between runs where you drop little bits of knowledge. But up until that point in my scent work journey, here's what I understood about scent work. You place a hide, you tell your dog to find the hide, they use their nose and they find the hide, and you call alert. And you were talking about stuff like odor behavior, changes of behavior, how different handlers were impacting what the dogs were doing in there. It was stuff I never even considered could be part of it. You opened up a whole world of the sport that I didn't even know existed — that I've since learned so much about. It's made the sport fun, and it's also made it easier to troubleshoot problems. Back then when I had a problem, like if my dog didn't find the hide, it was an odor problem. It wasn't a dog psychology problem. It wasn't something I did. But now my eyes have been opened to all that. So we're going to talk about all of that and more. This is Alert Scent Work. My name is Scot. I'm Murphy and Keeva's dad, and on the show today — mom to many dogs.

Most notably Shrimp. Most people know Shrimp. And I'm sure we'll be talking about Buddha, who has passed away, but mom to Buddha as well. Do you want to add any other names to that, Judith?

I guess I would just go with the pack other than that. Unless you want to count the honorary purple, which are the cats.

Yeah. If anybody's ever met Judith, she drives around in this dually pickup because she's a detection dog breeder and trainer, and a lot of times travels with her dogs — her detection dogs — because that's part of training for them, being able to sit and chill, and then she can work with them after the trial. But sometimes — how many dogs do you have? Like 16 dogs in that pickup of yours and three cats or something like that?

Oh, yeah, sometimes there's a fair number of the children.

Yeah. All right, so I want to find out about your origin story, which is crazy because we've known each other pretty well for a year now and have talked a lot, but I don't really know your origin story. Like, how did you end up in this crazy world of scent work? I know you were into horses before that — I've had a couple of judges on who came from that background. But how did scent work happen?

No joke. I was raised with active SAR dogs. My dad ran an active SAR dog in New England.

What are SAR dogs? Search and rescue?

Rescue. Yeah.

He bred German Shepherds and we had working line German Shepherds. A lot of our studs were actually retired police dogs, so we always had a couple of retired police dogs hanging out. I learned real quick the dos and don'ts when I was little. I clearly remember learning about prey drive when I was super little because I accidentally triggered somebody by running past them. I don't even know how old they were. They didn't hurt me, but it was one of those moments where you're like — oh yeah, maybe don't do that.

From there it was kind of a winding path. I worked on and off with protection sports and some scent work type stuff at the same time that I was doing pet dogs and a ton of horse stuff. I was doing eventing and dressage, and I was working sometimes as an assistant reining trainer. None of these things go together, but they kind of do. So I was doing all that type of stuff, and then I was just doing whatever piqued my interest with my own dogs. I had a very mixed pack — everything from huskies to pigs to a tiny Chihuahua rescue at one point.

That's actually where Buddha came from. During part of that period, someone, as they do, dropped a litter of 11 puppies on my doorstep that needed to be hand raised. And that's where he came from. As those who've been following me on social media know, this happens commonly — people just hand me little babies and go, here, keep it alive. Anyway, I did that. Then I wandered back into sport scent work from there.

I was still in the working world, but more on the bite work side. Not that I'm saying I'm an expert in bite work — that's not my forte. I was on that side of it for a while, and then I wandered back into sport, and then from there I wandered back into professional detection. So it's just kind of a wandering path from place to place — and I guess kind of a full circle at the same time. You end up where you started, even if you do other things in between.

So how did sport scent work end up becoming a thing? What was the doorway to that?

I've done a fair amount of work with reactive dogs at different points in my life. I was working with a reactive dog and I was trying to find opportunities that would work for this dog — that weren't any of the directions I currently had available to me. Like, I wasn't going to take him to go play French Ring. That was not a great idea. However, he needed outlets. He needed something that wasn't obedience — not that obedience and manners is bad — it just wasn't what he needed to learn that he could do things and ignore the distractions. And I came across the NACSW version, the canine nose work version of scent work, and went — oh yeah, that makes sense.

Soon after that, I had Buddha's litter born. The entire litter was — and people are going to find this controversial, but I'm going to say genetically reactive — because the amount of training and exposure and appropriate socialization that went into those dogs was insane. There was, however, a genetic component. I have pictures of Buddha when he was like four or five weeks old, already posturing up on adult dogs and trying to nip one in the face while it's backing away from him going, this puppy's gonna eat me. So yeah.

And so I was like, okay, I'm really going to run with this now. It was a very, very useful tool. Anybody who knew Buddha in the later years probably had no idea he was that reactive unless they heard me talk about it, because scent work did such a good job of helping him to calm down.

It was a major component. I'm not going to say it was the only thing, and the reason I say that is because I don't want somebody who has a potentially dangerous dog from innate traits to be like, I'll just do scent work and it'll fix the problem. You have to understand that there's a management and awareness piece that goes into that dog's entire life. And if you're not willing to step up and do that to keep him and everybody around him safe — whether four-legged or two-legged — then that might not be what you need to be doing.

That's fair. So is Buddha your first scent work dog? I'm getting the sense that maybe not — maybe there was another dog before that for sport.

He was the first one I competed with.

You competed with Buddha and did really, really well. What was the secret there, do you think? Why was Buddha so good at it? Why were you as a team so good at it?

I would say it's a combination between the fact that we were so hooked into each other. I've joked many times that we were codependent because I decided when he was little that he was never going to leave. And we either needed to do things together or he didn't need to be a danger to society — because at the time he was very potentially dangerous when he was little. And so we got very, very good at reading each other and communicating.

He was always an independent spirit to start with, and I always tried to preserve that while still instilling boundaries, rules, and regulations specific to what we needed for everybody to stay safe and happy. So I think those went together well with the fact that he was a food hound. He loved food. And I imprinted him on hunting for primary — for him being food — when he was very young. So persistence and hunting skills were both things he ingrained from the time he was five, six weeks old on. And I didn't put him on odor till he was a year.

And you knew how to do this training stuff because of your early experience with the detection dogs your dad raised?

Yeah. I had experience through my childhood and then experience in training and psychology in general. And then I had some experiences with NACSW — with canine nose work, the partner organization, not the sport organization piece. And they gave me some perspectives I hadn't been considering and some direction and gateways. I watched stuff and I was like — I used to watch Ron. And I was like, oh, got it. He really spoke to me, the way he worked dogs.

Ron comes up a lot in this podcast.

Yeah, he was. He was so funny because I work detection dogs too. So he'd have me send him videos or whatever, and he would just send me back thumbs up or thumbs down — never tell me anything else. And so thumbs up, I'm like, cool. And thumbs down, you're like, what did I do? And he wouldn't tell me. I had to just figure it out on my own. I would just sit there going — okay, I did something. What did I do?

So then you break into the ultra deep analysis. You're like — all right, well, maybe it was this. Was this it? No, I don't think that was it. Maybe it was that. Like, you really had to break it down, which would be a frustrating way to be taught. But also, man, it probably was a very comprehensive and thorough way to go through your own videos.

It was great.

So then you competed. What sucked you in even further to want to become a judge?

I just love the teamwork aspect. I love the independent aspect. I love the paradigm shifts between — so I've competed in agility and obedience and whatnot. And I always feel like obedience is more like: I want you to be sharp and on point and paying attention to my subtlest signals and to do exact, compliant behaviors to exactly what I'm asking you to do in the moment I'm asking you to do it. However, when I'm doing scent work, it's — hey buddy, you've got your whole own lane that you're in charge of, and I'm not stepping on your toes. I'm going to go over here and do this part of the job, which you can't do, and you're going to do your part. So I've always felt like it was more of a team — the balance of power is a little bit more there.

And I love being able to see teams from all walks of life, all breeds, all genetics, all backgrounds, be able to figure this out. I adore that. And I love being able to support teams. Or like, if I'm judging, hopefully I'm setting puzzles that allow teams to test themselves against. Like, when you go out and you compete, depending on how competitive you are, you go out to win or whatever.

I go out to compete against myself. I go out to compete against a standard. You're laying a test and a standard in front of me, and I'm pitting myself against that test and saying — where do I stand today in this moment? Where does my team stand right this moment? Do we have the skills? Do we not have the skills? How sharp are those skills?

And then I can also look at how did we do against other people? But if I felt we did very poorly, but we somehow got a blue ribbon, I feel no pride in that.

If we got last place but I felt like we did our personal best, I'm ecstatic. And so when I'm setting courses, I'm setting them to the standard that's written in the organization and the level and the test. Those are my guidelines to set a course and a test for you to pit yourself against and say — am I there today? And if I'm not, hopefully you learn from it. So you can take that home and challenge yourself with that knowledge. Instead of going home and kicking rocks, you go home and go — okay, my skills here were lacking. How can I build this?

That's surprising. I would have thought that the odor theory part of it would have played into it a lot — watching how dogs work the odor puzzles and that sort of thing.

That's the tool that I use.

Oh, okay. To get the thing you enjoy.

Yeah.

I want to talk about a framework that you have — a judging framework. And the reason I bring this up is because I think competitors can learn from this. Not learn like — oh, this is what Judith is thinking when she's setting up a hide — and then try to game the system. But the 100 rule that you use I think is a useful framework to talk about. Again, this idea of opening our eyes to all the different factors that go into this game we play called scent work that can influence the outcome of any particular round. So talk a little bit about the 100 rule, and then let's explore how it can help competitors.

Okay. So the 100 rule is that when I look at my standard — what my framework is based upon, the association rules combined with my environmental factors and what tools I have available to me for puzzles, which have to be within those guidelines — can I make a hundred? So if I have, I'll use some really simple examples. If I have an environment that is extremely busy, then that's probably going to get a higher environmental score. Or I can break that down even more and say static environment versus fluid environment. What I mean by that is if I have a static environment — the stuff that's there that's not changing — maybe it's full of storage, or maybe it's full of boxes, or maybe it's a really cluttered classroom. Or maybe we're at Nightmare on 13th and we're in the swamp thing area. There's just stuff everywhere. That might get a different score or a higher score depending on the puzzle I set, versus somewhere that's much cleaner and easier to move around in. Takes less thinking to process the space.

And when we're talking fluid environment, we're talking the things that change. So my airflow, my humidity, my barometric pressure, my cloud versus no cloud versus rain — that type of stuff can change. So I have to consider that as well.

And of course all of that impacts how odor behaves — that's what you're ultimately getting at, correct?

Yeah, correct. So I give my static environment a score depending on how complex or simplistic it is. I give my fluid environment a score considering how complex or simplistic it is. Is it a reasonable amount of humidity without being crazy — I'm not dripping and feeling like I'm walking through a fog, but there's enough there that it's giving me nice clean pictures. Or am I super dry and everything's just floating away? Am I in the sun or the shade? Am I cool — meaning it's going to stick a little bit closer and the molecules aren't moving as fast, giving me a little bit crisper, cleaner picture — or is it really hot and they're dissipating out in a big cloud everywhere and I don't have clean lines.

Didn't do a very good job of setting this up. The 100 rule is what you use to create level appropriate challenges given all the different variables. So kind of to summarize — if you have a really crazy static environment and a really crazy dynamic environment, then the hide those are scoring high, getting you pretty close to a hundred. So you're not necessarily going to set complicated odor puzzles.

Correct.

So now I'm going to set a more simplistic puzzle because my environment has given me — and simplistic doesn't mean easy. But I'm setting something that is going to score lower, have clearer, crisper pictures to the best of my ability, because I already scored high somewhere else. So I'm not going to put the emphasis on the puzzle.

If I have very simplistic environments, then I'm probably going to have a higher puzzle value. Again, not because I'm trying to mess with a team — I want everybody who's at that level to be successful — but because I'm trying to make every trial equal in challenge to the best of my ability. It's just that the challenge is changing.

Exactly.

So I think, for example, for a novice team — perhaps if they come in and you happen to be at a fairgrounds and the only place you can do interior is on sawdust or something like that, where all sorts of other animals have been. Not ideal for novice teams because those dogs are going to be very easily distracted — critter stuff and that sort of thing. So you're going to be really sure that rate's high, you're almost to 100. So you're going to be really sure that your odor pictures are super clear in that instance.

Correct. It's gonna be like — look, picture here, right in front. Maybe even hitting them in the face at the start line. That would be the goal.

Or if it's a master team and it's a pretty simplistic environment — not a lot of places where odor is collecting, not a lot of productive areas you have to search — then maybe the puzzles are going to be a little bit more challenging and nebulous that the dog's going to have to think through, because they don't have to check all the different areas.

Correct.

So what I love about this — from a competitor standpoint, it really opens your eyes to all the things that are going on that can impact your success in a search.

Yes.

And I think you can take that to heart if you don't succeed in a search. You could be like — wow, for our team the environment was really challenging, but we still found two of the three hides. That's actually a big win for us.

And there's another piece that people don't consider a lot of times — part of my association rules might say I have one to three minutes. Well, a lot of times I'm going to say — how do I make sure you have enough time for proper clearance? Maybe my area is super simplistic. This is a higher level search, and I don't have a ton of different hide options. So I might actually put the challenge in my time pressure instead — still making sure that it's doable. Everything has to be doable. I'm not like, ooh, can I get you with time? But that is another piece of the puzzle, another piece of the pressure. Am I giving you too much time, causing you to overthink it? Am I giving you a solid amount of time so my teams can get around the space productively? Or am I going to push you a little bit because of the simplicity?

Right, right. And I've been in the parking lots at trials where you've done that. And for some reason, that time thing can trigger some people.

It really can.

It's really strange to me, because there are so many other variables that judges can play with. Like if there was a distractor out there and it was a toy that your dog loved from home and it just so happened to be there — well, that's a laughed-off sort of, oh wow, that one didn't work out for us. But when judges start manipulating time as part of the challenge, people start to freak out as opposed to just going — all right, how might this impact my strategy? Now I know I don't have a ton of time.

And part of that also depends on your trust in the judge. You have to trust that judge is thinking like you — that I've set that time for a purpose. I haven't made any puzzle that's going to be so hard that a team's not going to be able to do it in that time. But we just instantly assume short time means we're not going to be able to do it. It's so weird.

Well, and it's part of what you should be doing when you're looking at your search plan — a checklist, a decision tree type setup. Like when you're pre-gaming, that's part of what you're looking at from a competitor standpoint. If you're like — okay, this space is pretty simplistic, she's giving me a minute, it's not anywhere close to the max interior, whatever — so I know I'm going to go in and just do a rough sweep. Then I'm going to come back and hit productive or missed spaces if we have time. I'm going to modify my approach. Versus — oh, they gave me a bunch of time but it's a big, cluttered space. Maybe I need to be more methodical about how I do this. Not every search should be run the same. Teams have specific things they're better at or worse at or that they prefer. That's great. But there are times where you need to train and run so that you can modify for what's in front of you. This is the challenge in front of me — how do I run it? Not how do I try to make it conform to what I prefer.

Another way I think the 100 rule can really work is when we're training. Because sometimes, especially when we're starting out in scent work, we take for granted some of the challenges our dog might be facing and we don't take that into account when we're setting training hides. For example, if I'm going to a park because I want to train my dog in various environments and they're a squirrel hound and there's squirrels all over the place, then maybe those hides should be pretty easy so we can train that odor is more important than the squirrels — as opposed to that being the time you decide to work on a triangle hide.

100%.

So if I'm going into training with a goal, I can go in and say I have X goal and I'm going to set my environment to support me training that goal. Or I can go in and say I have X environment and I'm going to pick the training situation that benefits us and fits the environment.

So if I know I'm going to the park and he's a squirrel hound and there's squirrels there — now my environment is dictating that I'm going to pick a puzzle that is going to support us moving forward and be successful based on my environment. If I want to work triangles, then I need to go somewhere else and pick an environment that supports the goal. Neither is bad. They're just different ways of thinking.

Yeah. That 100 rule is absolutely fabulous. I hope some people find value in that. I hadn't heard anybody quite say it out loud this way — that this is what's going on.

I'm all about taking complex stuff and making it simple.

I love it. That's perfect for me. I want to talk a little bit about detection dog work. That's a big part of what you do — you raise detection dogs, you train them, you breed them. You've handled detection dogs before. What can we take from that aspect and apply to the sport world? I know there's a million things, but let's just pick one.

Independence comes first.

Okay. Is that it? This is going to be the shortest section of the podcast ever. Explain a little bit more — from your perspective as a detection dog handler, what that means.

All right. When I'm working my detection dog — and same with my sport dog — I'm not the one with the nose. They are. Now, there are certain odors where you walk into a space and you're like, this space is hot. That still doesn't tell me where source is. I'm not going to go find it. They have to find it. And so if I'm trying to dictate where they're going, or if they're constantly looking at me going, mommy, help me — I am not going to be successful or happy or have fun. And if I'm running my detection dog — my bomb dog — and there's a bomb threat and we have 30 minutes to clear the space before the VIP comes in, I need an independent dog that's out in front of me. We need to be making good decisions on the limited time we have — what the pertinent areas are that we have to get cleared first versus what we can go back and work. And so if I have a dog who's asking, mommy, where is it? We have a problem.

Yeah, right.

I need a dog that's going — I'm gonna go do my job.

Yeah, sure. Where's that?

I'm gonna hunt for that bomb. If that bomb's here, I got it.

Yeah, I got you, mom. Let's fix this.

Right. And so we're not going to die. We're not at any risk in a sport situation. However, that independence is still there. If I walk into a search that I have a minute to clear, and I have a dog who's like, mommy, where is it? Where do I go? Now I have a major problem. Because we don't have time for that. My human brain's then going to have to pick out spots and try to outguess the judge. That's not a great plan. I need that dog going — I'm in charge, I've got this, this is my part of the deal, this is my job on the team. You've got your job, I've got my job.

That was one of the problems that you helped me with with my dog. My dog had a hunt problem after the first levels. Because in the first levels, odor is always available — it's always there. And a lot of times it's there at the start line. But when you move up — I think excellent odor is still pretty available — but master and definitely detective, a judge might decide to have the first half of the search area blank.

Yep.

And I would run into situations where if he didn't have odor at the start line, he'd look at me going, what are we doing here? And he would go really, really flat. So we had to build that. If somebody's experiencing that — it's no fault of his or mine necessarily, other than he's my first dog and I would train differently now. It was kind of the effect of the game — the way the game is played at those lower levels kind of feeds into that, if you don't know that it's feeding into that.

Correct.

You can get caught off guard. So what's a good tip to help start to build that drive if somebody's struggling with that?

For a dog on odor already or for a dog on primary?

Yeah, for a dog on odor.

Okay. So if I have a dog on odor already — maybe we've gone through a couple levels and he's struggling — I'm going to do a couple things. I'm going to start with odor from the start line and then have big blank spaces that he's got to work through. And by him — and when I say big, that's going to be relative to the dog. I need to pay attention to where his bubble of frustration is. Like, where does his reward clock start freaking out? And does it freak out by getting depressed or by him getting frustrated? Which one do I have?

I'm pulsing sometimes. That's another way that happens.

Correct. So I'm going to say — I'm going to give him odor, and then here's an area that doesn't have anything. As soon as we make it through this area — and a lot of times I'll control it so that I can get to it at any time, but it's behind a door or around a corner or something — so I'm using my environment so they don't have access to the odor. And I'm like, hey, let's work over here. I'm going to push them to that edge, and then I'm going to take them to the area with odor. And I'm actually rewarding them by letting them find odor. They still have to complete the puzzle, but I'm like — here's your reward, buddy. You kept going, and boom, here's odor right now. You can work it. Which makes them want it even more. Once I start building that, now I'm going to say — okay, cool. Instead of starting with odor, we're going to have no odor. But if you give me a little bit of hunt, I'm going to go forward, go back, go forward, go back — but not as far. So I'm going to give them a smaller blank area. Maybe I'll start them with no odor, get a little bit of hunt, and then reward them with odor and build from there. And then at that point, it's just success by approximation and variation.

Perfect. That's awesome. I think that's going to help a lot of people. You have been traveling a lot and judging a lot, and you get around. What are some of the states you've been to? I know you do Idaho, Utah. You're out of Nevada, so you kind of do this region. You've been to Texas before a lot. Have you been to Alaska yet?

Yeah, I've been to Alaska and Hawaii.

So when you travel around and see different teams, do you notice any regional differences in how teams work? And is there something we can extract out of that that could help us? Because I think a lot of us kind of compete in our own little regions, sometimes just a singular town. So what are you seeing out there?

If you want me to try to say this region does X, I don't want to call anything out. However, I'm going to say 100% that we definitely see trends in areas and also trends among instructors — including mine. I'm sure my students have trends. So what I highly recommend is that when you're very first starting, it's a great idea to have somebody give you a central basis to build off of. We need that. We need to make the island to hook the boats onto. We need something to start with.

From there you need to branch out and explore. Whether it's by putting yourself in front of judges from other places so they can expose you to ideas — we all get habits and trends. So you want to make sure you're putting yourself in front of different people's variations of how they do stuff, different people's habits, different people's trends. You want to expose yourself to different ideas and ways of thinking. And I'm not saying go take a million webinars and take everything they say wholeheartedly. I'm saying go out and explore, and take everything — including what I say — with a grain of salt. Actually think about it and say — does this fit me? Does this make sense? Does this fit my team? Is this a tool I need to put in the toolbox? I might need it one day, but I don't need it right this moment.

And that's what I would do. I would expose myself educationally as much as I possibly can across the board, and then I would put myself in front of as many different things or people or ideas as I can and test myself against them. Okay, this person is from a different region — let's see what type of test they give me. And that will make you grow. Positive pressure. Not too much — you don't want to overwhelm yourself — but enough to make you grow is what you want. Don't stay in your little hot house. Go out, explore the world.

I so relate to that. I went to a trial here locally that had three judges I'd never shown under, and we were just moving up from excellent to master. And I saw puzzles that I had never seen, because judges around here just weren't setting those. And it really kind of blew my mind a little bit and opened up my mind to what is possible. So that is such great advice — to get out and try to show under some different judges if you want to continue to press yourself and improve and also have fun.

Like, there's nothing more fun than seeing a judge do something that is totally legit, totally works, that you didn't expect. And then your dog solves that, and you call alert, and they say yes. You're like, wow, that was kind of cool. I really love those moments.

Oh yeah, those moments are amazing. And the other side of it is how depressing it is to think you're the best, and then you realize you're this tiny fish in a big pond because you never put yourself in that position. Then you have an overinflated sense of where your skill set is, and that's just no fun. I think it's much better to always be growing. Then when you feel confident in your skills, it's real.

It was also really cool in that situation — even though we didn't do well, I was able to recognize, wow, those were just some puzzles we've never seen before. Like, I didn't get down on myself. At first I did a little bit, but then when I started thinking about it, I'm like, that really isn't a shortcoming of us, because at this time, that's where we were. We had never seen these puzzles before. We were able to go back home and practice some of those puzzles, and then when they present themselves again, you can overcome them. And that's a powerful thing to know — that sometimes it's beyond where you're at right now. And that's okay.

That is. And that's a huge thing to recognize for your mental health, if nothing else.

Totally. All right, we have time for maybe a couple more questions before we get to seven questions and wrap this thing up. One of the things you do as a judge that I really love — you were one of the first judges I kind of watched as you were setting detective hides. And another thing I didn't know existed is that different puzzles have different names. A lot of our listeners might already know this, but maybe we'll discover a couple we didn't know. So you would talk about — oh, I'm going to set a triangle hide. That's one of them. What are some other ways that you name puzzles? And I think this could be useful so we know what judges are doing and so we can practice them at home.

High low — high low can be a modifier to pretty much any other type of puzzle. So you've got high lows, you've got lines. My three basics are simple converging — which can also be modified by how close they are — lines, and triangles. And then single hide and then single hide high difficulty. I would say those are my go-to. And then I'm going to have the modifiers of how I want to do high-low variants of odor, how inaccessible something is, how close something is. So the close convergence versus far convergence — all of those things are modifiers to the basics. We can name them all sorts of things, but I think it's easier to simplify it by saying we really only have a few things. We've got two-hide convergence. We have single hides. We have three-hide or more triangles and three-hide or more line hides. Or even two-hide or more line hides. And then you can modify those by inaccessible, high-low, et cetera.

Right. And then closeness makes the converging more extreme.

Yes.

Or further away could make it less extreme. So that might be how you control a highly distracting environment — you might still set a converging, but not set them so close. In a lower distracting environment without a lot of stuff, maybe you make it a tougher close convergence.

Correct. Or I'll use an example of a hide I set a few years ago. It was an excellent exterior. The area was very simplistic — a sidewalk, the side of a building, and an alcove. You went around a little bit, and there was an alcove right there. And I had to put three exterior hides in this space. I'm famous for not wanting to populate my spaces unless I must — it's not something I enjoy. And so I used the alcove for one of them because there was a nice little half wall that controlled that odor. And then there was a piece of the architecture — a pillar that went all the way up the side of the building. It came out maybe 24 inches. And it was a couple feet wide, probably three feet wide. And the way the airflow was, I used the corner between the building and the pillar because it was a solid construction. So I used the corner in the rock on either side of the pillar, and I put a hide on each side of that pillar. They were only like three or four feet apart, and they had completely unique and distinct scent plumes that were not interacting with each other — other than maybe ten feet out outside the cones. And we had a really high success rate. And people were flabbergasted because they're like, those hides are so close together. And I'm like, yes, but they're not talking to each other at all.

Yeah. And you as a judge knew that. And a lot of competitors — even myself — might not have realized that at the time. They're probably amazed at how close they were, and they got them.

Correct. We had a really nice success rate.

Because that can freak people out when hides are super close like that.

It did. Most of the people that didn't get it — it was purely in their mind. They were just like, no, that can't be it.

Yeah. The other thing I want to talk about briefly is using the same odor close to each other. That's another thing that freaks people out. And I would like you to calm people down a little bit when they hear that — like, two birch hides were super close to each other. How not a big deal that really is.

It's really, really, really not. You can run into some problems if your dog has never seen the picture. However, dogs — first off, we end up with other odors attached to our odor. Like, we've got the hide vessels, whatever adhesive thing — is it sticky, is it a magnet, all the things. So there's something different about every hide as well as the same. On top of that, dogs are really, really good at sorting molecules. Really good at it. And way back it used to be in NACSW that you would work all the way through one odor. Like you would work birch, and you'd get your ORT and your NW1 before you put your dog on more odors. It was not common for a dog to go through multiple odors at once. You did like one odor, and if you did multiple, it was controversial. There was a period it was controversial to put your dog on multiple odors at one time. So you would watch these dogs — you've got ten birch hides in your living room and the dogs are working all of them and finding them, and they're NW1 — basically novice level dogs. And they're like, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam. Like it's beautiful.

Right. Even if they're converging, they can figure it out.

And let alone if it was the situation where you had two non-converging plumes — that would be a piece of cake.

Correct. So it's the human brain that makes us freak out about it. Now, can I make it more challenging or less challenging by doing like a line hide all birch, all same plane? Yeah, sure, I can. But that would be more difficult even on non-converging odor. I just happen to use the same odor. The dogs can 100% figure it out.

Yeah. When you explained that to me, it made me feel so much better. And you know what — you were right. The dog can figure it out. There's so many things that would be a rich area of conversation at some point — all the things the human brain does that gets in the way of doing our scent work. And that would be one of them. This idea that our dogs can't sort out the same odor if it's close to each other — that would be some excuse why we didn't qualify.

Oh yeah. And we just have to own the reasons. I'll use the NW1 that I did last weekend. I took Shrimp and we did an NW1. You would think Shrimp would be like — got this.

She had odor over her head. She worked it really hard. I knew where I was — I was vindicated that I was correct on where I thought it was. Let's go with that. However, no. Like, I just looked at the space and how she worked it, and I went — it's there. But we didn't get it until after time. She timed out because I looked at the situation and said, from a training standpoint, if I just turn my hip and put her nose right into it, I'm not really happy with the outcome of that. Like, I get a pass, but I'm not happy with the outcome. We obviously have a situation here and a learning opportunity.

And so I let her work through it, and she solved it directly — like, right after time. And the judge let her finish because she was right there. And it was a learning experience — I went, okay, cool, let me go work more of these hides. Because it was like overhead traveling until it hit the walls, and I was going vertical up and down. And she worked it. She learned something from it. And it was trial. So my human brain was like — people, judgment, someone's going to say the no. Just let the dog do it. It's a learning opportunity — and it's a learning opportunity at trial, because I don't want her to learn that every time she has the situational cues of trial, suddenly her human helps her.

Yeah, right. That's a tough thing. You're right. And it ties right back into what you said earlier in the podcast — if you were dead last but you had the best run that you guys could ever have, you're happy with that. And if you came in first place because you turned that hip and put her into it, you would not have been happy with that.

I think that's a great place to end. We're going to go ahead and wrap with seven questions. You ready for this? It's seven questions, rapid fire, just a sentence. If I want more, I'll ask for more. You ready?

Sure.

Okay, here we go. What is your dog's favorite reward after a great search? It could be Shrimp, it could be in honor of Buddha — whoever.

Any type of food.

It doesn't matter, huh?

Anything. It could be the driest, nastiest piece of kibble.

Shrimp's a beagle. Shrimp will eat anything.

So would Buddha.

What's one piece of advice that you would give your beginner scent work self, if you could go all the way back to the beginning?

Don't care about other people.

What do you hope competitors say about your searches?

That I honored the dog and I was a team.

What does it mean to honor the dog?

Okay, so to me, honoring the dog is being part of the team. It's not me taking over for the dog. It's also not me leaving the dog out there on its own to figure it out when it's not appropriate. It's kind of a balance. But honoring the dog is allowing the dog the full chance to experience and work and learn, as well as the full chance to be part of our pack of two as we're hunting together.

I love it. Okay, let me flip that. As a judge, what do you hope the competitors will say about your searches?

That they were fair but challenging.

What type of search or hide do you think teams often underestimate?

Anything where a plume is in another plume.

What do successful teams tend to have in common?

They learned from their non-successes.

If your dog could describe you in one word as a handler, what would it be?

Annoying.

Why? I wouldn't think that would be the case. Shrimp's like — come on, mom, you know where it is. Why did you have to turn it into a learning experience? Why couldn't we have just got the ribbon?

I just picture a teenager. Like, really, mom? Really?

I know the answer to this, but I'm hoping to get the answer I want. Do you have a signature distractor — something that shows up at all your searches?

Probably one of my kennel collars.

Yes. I asked that question because I know you've shown up sometimes and you have no distractors. And you go out to your truck and you're like taking leashes out of your truck, and I'm just like —

Don't mind me. I'm just going to borrow your collar. Nobody in my trailer has a collar on. They're all out in the searches.

What is your dog's biggest search quirk or funny habit?

I must find edge and tell mom about it before she comes back. But that's because she's the demo dog so often that I encouraged it. So now it's a problem.

Yeah, I just want to clarify for listeners what Judith is talking about there. Or I guess I could have you clarify it — why am I talking for you? Clarify what that means.

So I use Shrimp as a demo dog a lot. All of her training for nose work came through that — demoing didn't teach her, but I was using her as a demo dog. So all of the skill sets we developed were demo-dog specific. And then I've competed as a secondary — like, oh, I can compete in this thing this weekend, I'll do it. And so I want my demo dogs to show me not just resources. I want them to show me where odor's collecting, where it's pooling, where it's traveling through, where the lines are, all the things. Which means that sometimes she's going to spend a little bit more time telling me about what the picture looks like. She's drawing me pictures in crayon. She's going — okay, mommy, here's the picture of what it's doing. Now I'll source it.

Right. Whereas a regular competitive dog would just figure it out and go to source.

Yeah, they'd just be like — bam, there you go.

You've reinforced that Shrimp needs to show you all this other information, which cracks me up. I love it. What would you tell a team that feels like they're not progressing as fast as they should?

Every team is different. And how do you know that your progression — like, you don't know that A, you started in the same place as that other team. B, you don't know if you have the same challenges, struggles, or positives. You don't know if your strengths or weaknesses match that other team. So just because they look like they're progressing faster does not mean they are. You may actually be building a more solid foundation, which will make you skyrocket versus somebody who's going really fast through what is perceived as going really fast through levels or skills — but then they crumble because the foundation is broken.

Judith, what a wonderful opportunity to get to talk to you a little bit more in depth. I am positive that listeners are going to get a lot out of this conversation. If they want to find you, where else can they go?

The Nose Dogs newsletter is a great place to get information. Our social media — Nose Dogs Detection Services on Facebook — is pretty active and full of mostly educational content. Some pieces are just funny or cute, like — look how cute this puppy is. So Dana from Desert Drug Dogs took pictures of my puppies when she was puppy sitting last weekend. So there's a picture of a puppy sniffing a flower. I know that's not educational, but it was so cute. Anyway. Most of the stuff that's up there though is about scent work or odor theory or handling skills or dog skills — or like the series I just did, The Pillars of the Dog, which talked about all the things that aren't training. Training is just a piece of the puzzle. It talks about nutrition and fitness and all these other things you need to consider for your team as well.

That's awesome.

And then there's Scent Work University. I have classes, I have webinars — lots of webinars — and I have classes on Scent Work University. I also have a new setup starting in April. I've got two classes available through a Zoom class version. So it's a live class — meaning it does all the things that Scent Work University used to do or still does for many classes, where you have all of the pre-recorded content, you have the videos, you have the interaction through the group, all of that. And in addition, we also have a weekly Zoom meetup class where I'll pre-review your videos and we can do live feedback and interaction. I think it's a lot more helpful for some people in the way they learn. And so I'm really excited about that.

That's awesome. Judith, thank you very much for being on the show. It's been a long time coming. I know a lot of the listeners have wanted to have you on, and now we can go ahead and check that box. That is fantastic.

If you like this episode and know somebody that might enjoy it, please share it with them. And if you haven't already, consider subscribing to Alert Scent Work wherever you happen to podcast. Or you can go to alertscentwork.com and join the discussion too. We have a Facebook page — Alert Scent Work — where we talk about the episodes, what our favorite takeaways were, and we have some fun stuff as well, like the cartoons that we've just started that have taken off like crazy. Thank you very much for being on the show, Judith. And thank you for listening to Alert Scent Work.