Before I start my piece this month, I'd like to take a moment to clarify the philosophy of this column. I received quite a lot of feedback on my review of Diane Bauman's Beyond Basic Dog Training: The Workbook (F&F: August 1994). The comments ranged from the very positive, praising me for having a sense of humor and possessing the courage to write an honestly critical review, to the extremely negative, taking me to task for unnecessary nastiness and accusing me of having a personal vendetta against Diane Bauman. Many of these comments were a surprise to me. I have written book reviews both for scholarly journals and popular magazines, and I did not feel it necessary to treat my Front and Finish audience any differently than I would any other. The "wittily sarcastic" review is nothing more than a rhetorical style, one that should be familiar to anyone used to reading reviews; it is never to be construed as a personal attack on a given author. It is, instead, both a comment on the work under consideration and an attempt to amuse the reader.
But the world of competitive obedience is a small one, and I decided that I'd better make a few implicit things explicit. One of my computer magazines requires that reviewers offer a footnote explaining what sort of software platforms they prefer, and confessing whether they've ever worked for a particular software company, in order to allow readers to judge the objectivity of the review. Although talking about myself is not one of my favorite topics, this policy seems reasonable to me. So here's all that you could possibly want to know about me. I am (or I will be when you read this) twenty-eight years old. I train with tons of food and not too much correction, probably because I work with basset hounds and haven't much choice. I've been trying to motivate with toys lately, but it hasn't seemed to catch on. I care very much about writing style, and I also care about typography and presentation. I am notoriously impatient with mistakes in spelling, grammar, and diction. I love Star Trek, Northern Exposure, Garrison Keillor, Bach, Jane Austen, fountain pens, Saint Saens, the Internet, training and showing dogs, the Beatles, computers, ragtime piano music, baseball, old Hollywood movies, really good tomatoes, and corn on the cob. I hate injustice, self-satisfied people, acid rock, slasher movies, Wagner operas, fudge, cooked carrots, and people who dot their i's with smiley faces. Take from that what you will.
I will repeat what I said in my first column: I am reviewing books and videos according to the clarity of presentation; I am not reviewing methods. For example, this month I'm considering Janice DeMello's "Around the Clock Method of Scent Discrimination." Now, I happen to think that this method is little short of brilliant--but I'm not going to say that in the review. My opinion of the method simply isn't worth much. I haven't been training dogs for thirty years, and I haven't tried lots of different methods to teach dogs articles. The fact that DeMello's method makes intuitive sense to me is hardly worth publishing. What I am evaluating, instead, is how clear and useful the video is, and what precisely it covers. I'm confident that I'm a careful reader and a good writer, and that my opinion on this front is at least worth ink and paper. Yes, some of my reviews will be negative, even sarcastic; reviews, after all, are not free advertising. Some will be positive, and some will be somewhere in between. Yet without fail, all reviews will be done with no regard to the author of the work under consideration--I'd write the same review whether the work were to come from a famous trainer or an unknown. I'm an almost painfully honest person, especially when I write. You'll just have to take it on faith that I have no underlying political agenda. I don't know any top trainers, and Diane Bauman wouldn't know me from a Chihuahua. I'm rather anti-social, and I intend to keep it that way. So please take these reviews in the spirit in which they're offered; they are neither more nor less than the not-so-humble opinion of one person who always attempts to shoot from the hip.
This month, thankfully, I have only good things to say about the video that I'm reviewing. Janice DeMello's "Around the Clock Method of Scent Discrimination" was produced in 1992. This video provides all that you need to teach your dog articles, even if you're working entirely alone. It succeeds in removing the mystery from one of the most intimidating and mysterious exercises in utility. The clarity of the presentation is outstanding. In addition, the tape comes with a useful packet summarizing each week's lesson and minimizing the need for note-taking. DeMello provides a system designed to minimize stress (both on the part of the dog and the handler) throughout the process of learning scent discrimination. The video outlines an easy, commonsense approach to teaching articles. Anyone contemplating alternatives to the traditional tie-down board should consider adding this tape to their video library.
The around-the-clock method takes seven weeks, after which the dog should have a clear idea of what scent discrimination is all about. The video commences with a lengthy introduction explaining some of the concepts used. The most important of these concepts is that of the clock itself. DeMello's "clock" has positions at 12, 2, 3, 4, 6, 8, 9, and 10 (which correspond to the numbers on an actual clock). In addition, she places between position 12 and position 6 the letters A, B, and C, so the clock has a vertical line of 12, A, B, C, and 6. By systematically placing the scented articles on different positions on the clock throughout the learning process, the dog theoretically learns to work both the inside and the outside of the pile.
The staple of DeMello's method is canned cracker cheese, which is squeezed on the articles. (You know the stuff--it has a shelf life longer than the people who made it. The plus side of all those preservatives is that you can store it in your training bag. We'd better not think about the minus side.) DeMello demonstrates how to apply hot scent to an article properly, how to apply the strip of cheese to the article's dowel, and how to position the articles around the clock. She comments that a force retrieve is necessary to use this method. During the seven weeks, the dog will be on a six-foot lead and will be wearing either a buckle collar or a choke with the lead attached to the dead ring. The same article (usually number 6 or number 0) will be used throughout the course.
Before discussing the individual weeks in detail, DeMello presents what she terms the "show, scent, and tell guidance system," which is designed to combat problems that might crop up during the learning process. She explains, for example, what to do if the dog picks up the wrong article at any time, if the dog fails to pick up an article, or if the dog puts down the scented article on his way back to you and returns to check the pile once again. Armed with this information, we are finally ready to start the course itself.
Janice DeMello advises us to draw the clock on the floor where we'll be doing most of our practicing. I found that a square of white plastic tablecloth and an indelible black magic marker does the job even better: it's handy, portable, reusable, and doesn't destroy your floors. She describes each week in great detail, complete with multiple closeups of the clock with the articles placed properly on it. Her course is far too detailed to describe in a review. Briefly, week one consists of scent and cheese placed on the metal article. The article is moved to a different position on the clock with each retrieve, and another unscented article is added to the pile each time, until the dog is working a full pile. This first week consists of a total of eleven retrieves per day, where the dog simply goes out to the pile, finds the article with cheese, licks it off, and retrieves it on command. Week two is exactly the same, except a leather article is substituted for the metal one. Week three diminishes the amount of cheese and alternates between a scented metal and a scented leather article; the total number of retrieves is reduced to nine, since more unscented articles are placed on the clock for the initial retrieve. Week four further lessens the amount of cheese on the articles, alternates between metal and leather, and at specific times turns the article upside down so that the cheese is on the underside of the article. This week requires seven retrieves daily. In week five, the cheese is placed on the underside on all retrieves, and the total number of retrieves is reduced to five. Week six marks the first week in which no cheese will be placed on the scented articles. By week seven, the dog should be able to retrieve the scented article in a full pile of unscented articles, and the total number of daily retrieves is reduced to four. The dog is thus using his nose (although he doesn't know why he is) and working a full pile of articles on the very first day of the course. If all goes well, he should be able to learn scent work with a minimum of confusion and stress.
At the end of the video, DeMello reviews certain key points that she wishes to emphasize, such as the reasons behind the specific placement of the articles around the clock. She also describes the proper way to back up to using cheese again if the dog is reluctant to pick up a non-cheesed article even after the application of the techniques outlined in her "show, scent, and tell" section, and she explains the importance of continuing to use the same articles for two weeks after week seven before washing them off. Nearly every possible problem in the teaching of scent discrimination is thus covered, along with suggested solutions.
This video should be watched at least once before the course of training commences, and a review of that week's particular lesson is in order at the beginning of the week. In addition, viewers might want to return to the "show, scent, and tell" section to help them solve particular problems. I have absolutely no complaints about this video as a teaching tool; it is extraordinarily valuable. My only complaint is little more than a wish. The tape is really rather dry to watch. I wouldn't even mention this at all, except for the fact that I attended one of Janice DeMello's seminars recently. This woman is funny. I mean really funny--Saturday Night Live funny, David Letterman funny. If some of that humor could have been injected into the tape, viewing it would be less of a chore. But it probably couldn't have been done without losing some of the thoroughness of the video. And in the end, at least as far as dog training goes, I'd rather spend money to be informed than to be entertained.