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Scent identification vs. Mantrail

Posted by Openfield on 20 Oct 2011 at 15:31 GMT

In the work of Pinc et al. dogs were used that were trained exclusively for scent discrimination using line-up settings. I think the fractions of scent used by those dogs might be very different to that used by dogs trained as mantrailer as e.g. in the work of Harvey et al..

Furthermore it seems that they always used the control as starting scent in the first line-up identification and the non-matching twin scent as start for the second ("Then the handler opened the glass jar containing a scent of the other twin of the same pair and used it as a starting scent.") This is not what I consider as blind.

Finally I am wondering why (only) two of the glasses on picture two are labelled - this is a strong hint for the handler.
I seems that the handler hold a clicker in his right hand - why?

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