Why I Use Getxent Tubes in K9 Water Leak Detection Training

One of my favorite ways to fit training into everyday life is having Kieran work for his dinner. We’re constantly on the go, and short training opportunities like this allow us to work in all kinds of environments, locations, and weather conditions. They also turn a daily routine into a high value reward and help build a lot of value for the work itself.

Recently, we worked a search for a Getxent tube containing the target odor of chlorine. You may have seen videos of Kieran working actual chlorinated water pours, but training with Getxent tubes serves a purpose too.

Getxent tubes are highly portable, and the odor itself is stable. Chlorine will evaporate out of water relatively quickly, which can limit the types of training scenarios I can create with actual chlorinated water. Getxent tubes allow me to set hides in locations that simply aren’t practical for a water pour, age hides, and revisit them later.

They also allow me to isolate the chlorine odor without the wet ground factor. Water leaks will not always create obviously wet environments, and just because an area is wet does not mean it has a leak. That makes it important to ensure the dog is learning to locate the target odor itself, not moisture.

Ironically, we were working in the rain for this search, so ground saturation wasn’t much of a variable because the entire area was soaked. There was even water flowing through parts of the gravel. I ran the exercise twice from different directions, and both times Kieran worked all the way to source.

Training with both Getxent tubes and actual chlorinated water gives me different ways to develop the same underlying skill. Water pours can create realistic training pictures, while Getxent tubes give me more control over where, when, and how I set training problems. I don’t see one as replacing the other. They give me different tools for teaching and testing different pieces of the work.

Short training opportunities like this are also one of my favorite ways to build experience on busy days. They only take a few minutes, fit easily into everyday life, and allow us to work in a wide variety of conditions.

For Kieran, this isn’t about earning a piece or two of kibble at a time. He’s working for a substantial reward that he genuinely values, sometimes up to his entire meal for a single find. That helps build tremendous enthusiasm for the work and creates a strong reinforcement history around searching.

A few thoughtful minutes of training can accomplish a lot. The goal isn’t always a long, elaborate session. Sometimes it’s simply creating one good problem, letting the dog solve it, and making that success worth the effort.