Distractors Aren't the Problem

Distractors often get treated like the boogeyman of container searches.

People worry about what food, toys, and other high-value items to work through, and spend a lot of time wondering how they’re going to get their dog to ignore all the things. But if we train the skill properly, distractors really aren’t that complicated.

When I train containers, I don’t just use the distractors that might show up in a trial. I use a huge assortment of food, toys, bones, grass clippings, random household items, and just about anything else I can think of. The specific item isn’t really the point. The point is teaching the dog that odor is the only thing that leads to reinforcement.

I also don’t set up searches with one or two distractors mixed among a bunch of empty boxes. Every single container contains something. Favorite freeze-dried snacks, old tennis balls, lunch from Chick-fil-A… every box has information for the dog to sort through.

Part of the reason for that is I want dogs actively checking containers. I want them sniffing, investigating, and dismissing things that aren’t odor. That’s the skill we’re building. Every container becomes an opportunity to practice discrimination.

The dog checks the container, gathers information, and moves on. We don’t allow them to fixate on distractors, and we don’t allow them access to what’s inside. Over time, food, toys, and all the other interesting smells become just that: information to be sorted through. Odor is what pays.

When they do find odor, I want that choice to be worth making. I reinforce generously because that’s the behavior I’m trying to build. The goal is a dog that can confidently work through distractions, leave everything else behind, and commit to source when they encounter odor.

But that doesn’t happen overnight. This is training, not testing. I’m not looking for a finished performance from a green dog. I’m teaching the individual pieces that eventually come together to create one. Discrimination is a skill, and like any skill, it has to be taught before it can be expected.

That also means I don’t spend all day drilling container searches. A few good repetitions are worth far more than endlessly running the same exercise. I want the dog to learn the lesson, make good choices, get reinforced for those choices, and move on. The goal isn’t to prove they can do it a hundred times in a row. The goal is to build understanding.

Recently, one of my nosework classes worked through exactly this concept. The dogs were presented with a variety of distractions, learned to work through them thoughtfully, and were rewarded for making the correct choice. That’s the lesson I want them taking away from every container search:

Check everything, ignore the noise, and choose odor.