Karin Niessen

I found this nice question at a Dutch forum, I'm wondering what your opinions are (apart from how smart doing it would be, it's just about the theory of doing it).

If you want a dog searching for let's say tobacco. Which dog would be fastest to train.

- A fully trained SAR dog (or any other scenting-dog)
- A 'fresh' dog or puppy that has no experience at scenting


I think (but am not sure) that I will be quite able to teach my dog to respond to a different scent relatively quick. she already finds both training-victims at training, and her ball-on-a-rope when just walking (as I can't aim and it ends in the bushes 9 out of 10 times). So she is already 2-scent-sensitive, she knows how to search using her nose, all she has to learn is to respond to a new scent... Of course connected to a new command... Already have the Dutch word for search for her toy, English for SAR, so ummm German or French or something would be next, lol...

So I think an already trained scenting dog would be faster to teach a new scent. I'm just not too sure about reliability... Even when using different commands...