Training Problems Udx Scent Discimination

[Canine Coach]

I have trained several dogs to UD O.CH. but not yet UDX

I started training my youngest dog in UDX Scent Discrimination a few weeks ago, just after she got her UD/O.CH.

I thought she had the understanding of the exercise as she had a 90% success rate

Suddenly, she seemed to not have a clue. She started failing the exercise. She will often go to indicate the correct cloth, drop it sniff the others pick up others drop them & bring back the wrong cloth

She seems like she has no idea what to look for

I am not quite sure what happened. However, I would perhaps venture a guess that when different "stewards" heavily scented the stewards cloths on 2 - 3 occasions, she became confused & lost confidence

That is just an educated guess

The past few days, I have tried ONLY scenting the judges cloths & she was correct 6 out of 7 times

Today I added, lightly scented Stewards cloths again & she went back to confusion, picking up the right cloth & dropping it etc etc etc

She is making wonderful progress on all the other exercises, so I find this all the more frustrating

I would be most grateful for insight from experienced people

[Nekhbet]

Sounds like she's not quite 100% sure on what she needs to be looking for. Take her back a few steps and see if maybe her success rate has come about through a bit of luck and other cues then the target scent you want her to go for.