I have a Siberian Husky named Rollo who is trained in scent work – think bomb detection dogs without combustibles! When scent work dogs are first being trained, the odor is paired with a reward. Over time the dog learns that finding the target odor (and telling the handler) leads to something good – that reward. During training, the handler must be very intentional about what gets rewarded because the dogs learn to alert on exactly what we pay them for.
