Scent discrimination question

I'm not sure if this is what you're aiming at or not, but how about hide and seek?  We play a couple of ways- inside I put Caleb in a sit/stay in the kitchen, hide a cookie in another room, then go back and tell Caleb "Find it!"  Outside I put him in a sit/stay behind the shed, hide someplace then call him or, our new version is for me to hide his bumper, go back and tell him "Find it!"  I started simple with hiding objects by putting them next to something or on a step.  He's now at the point inside where I can hide his cookie under a blanket or throw rug.  Just a couple of days ago I started putting the cookie on a chair, etc instead of hiding it on the floor someplace.

I didnt really want to do the "hide and seek" type, because Bailey is not toy motivated at all, and hes come a long way learning to NOT eat everything he finds, so I'd rather not teach him to search for food on the ground.. I use food for a reward, but I dont want him actually searching for and eating food that he finds, know what I mean?

I was talking about having multiple identicle containers, one containing a specific scent, and the dog is supose to find the one with the scent. Im not sure what scent is best and easiest to use for this kind of thing? (besides my own scent, I want to use something else)

I guess I could use the scent to make a hide and seek game too. Ive been working on teaching him "hold" with a short piece of light PVC pipe.
Maybe I could stuff the scent in there, hide it, then he could search for it? That might work.

 I saw a little video online about scent training, I did it with my own scent but you could use any I suppose.  Basically I had two sticky notes, one with the scent and one without.  He got c/t for nosing the one with the scent.

It went really well until in an excited moment he ate the scented sticky note 

kpwlee

 I saw a little video online about scent training, I did it with my own scent but you could use any I suppose.  Basically I had two sticky notes, one with the scent and one without.  He got c/t for nosing the one with the scent.

It went really well until in an excited moment he ate the scented sticky note 

Yea, I think I was the one who posted it
Was it this one? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o0uO-YZ30PI

I tried with the sticky notes, and Bailey just doesnt get it. He tries to eat them. If I ignore him when he trys to eat them, he will rip it up, or he gets bored and walks away.
Thats why I want to use plastic containers with a scent in them, they are much more durable lol.
But I do NOT want to use my own scent. Becuase I KNOW I will mess it up and get my scent on the wrong one or something like that.

How about money? Like, a dollar bill. Does that have a distinct scent that a dog would be able to find? Or does each dollar bill have a different scent?

One thing to keep in mind when doing scent work is how a dog scents. My cousin is a police cadet and often works with the police K9s. He said they did a demo for him where they crammed dope down into the gas tank of a car and the dog accurately indicated it. He says that where a human will smell a mixture of scents or smell the most overwhelming scent, the dog smells gasoline and dope and the human that touched the gas cap, so he can indicate the presence of dope even though the gas smell is overwhelming to us humans. Also, to a dog *everything* has a scent. A dollar bill probably is loaded with scents - the paper, the chemicals used, the people who've touched it, etc. Also, the environment/condition of the object will effect the scent. For example, when I track my dog in a field that is damp (dew or rain) with really nice, dense foliage, the dog is more likely to hold his head higher and not scent as precisely with his nose pressed into every footstep because under those conditions the scent emanates up and out. If I track the dog on dry ground with shorter, sparse foliage, his nose is buried in each footstep.