Tapping Out is Not Giving Up.

On an episode from the Warrior Kid podcast, the host, Jocko Willink answers a question from a kid who wants to learn how to do Jiu Jitsu without “tapping out” – the act of physically tapping your opponent to signal an end to the match. Jocko uses the question to guide listeners through the reasoning for tapping out and teaches them why it is a strength to tap out, not a weakness. In scent work, there is no well-established signal for tapping out, often leading to a negative outcome for our dogs. Much like Jiu Jitsu is all about rolling on the mats and grappling with an opponent, scent work is all about searching the environment and grappling with understanding and communication; but, in both worlds, you’re only advancing if you know when to stop.

Picking a Partner to Roll With

In Jiu Jitsu, you show up to practice and you pick a partner to roll with based on how you’re feeling, or based on your goals for the day. Maybe you go with a bigger, stronger partner so you can focus on defense and escape moves, or maybe you pick a partner who has never fallen for your arm bar and you’re hoping to improve that move. Or, maybe you let a partner pick you and roll with whatever he or she brings to the mats.

As a partner for your scent work dog, you’re often going to be who your dog needs you to be for that day’s training session. If your dog is expressing a need to work on focus to odor amidst distraction, you probably don’t want to be skimping on treats and asking him “where?” a thousand times when he sources the hide next to the heavily peed on tree. If your dog needs to assert his agency as the driver of the search effort, you need to consider how you’re allowing him to do that from the crate or car while still maintaining an agreement to search for the target odor. If your dog is wanting to work on the challenges of clear communication when being handled on leash, you need to try to recognize that as a possibility when you’re doing your searches.

On occasion, you might show up to practice and want your dog to be the right partner to meet your training goals. This is tricky, but maybe you’ll get lucky and your dog will have the confidence to adapt to whatever it is you’re trying to do – maybe you’re trying to work on your dog’s indication to inaccessible hides for competition or maybe you want to practice containers or vehicle searches under time pressure with some handler-led search patterns. If your dog is opposing you in these searches and you really just want an easy session, switch from scent work to obedience or tricks or toy play – all activities you have a much better chance of guiding towards your desired outcome.

While it can be frustrating when you and your dog are not in sync and your training goals aren’t getting met, it can also be illuminating, putting the spotlight on the patterns of behavior that help us to understand our dog’s (and our own) limits and the desire to push against those limits.

No End In Scent

In Jiu Jitsu, everyone knows that tapping out means the match is over. No one expects to have to tap out for long. As a matter of safety and respect, opponents disengage with each other when one or the other taps out. Having such an effective safety net in place allows participants in Jiu Jitsu to roll hard and roll with confidence – even in scenarios where defeat is imminent.

No such signal exists in scent work. There is no well-respected, universally understood, instantly obeyed version of tapping out during a search. Consequently, dogs do not enjoy the same level of safety and confidence to get out there and face various searching and scenting challenges. All too often, a dog finds himself locked in a battle with the environment, odor and his handler, with no clear way of tapping out. Lacking control over this part of his training, a dog may come to fear the worst when overmatched: that the experience of being defeated, having no way out, could go on indefinitely.

While the fear of “breaking” a dog – or frustrating, confusing, stressing, demotivating a dog – by allowing him to search to failure looms large in a handler’s mind, you cannot simply control your dog’s searches to avoid failure and hope to grow a robust and meaningful partnership. Just as your path to discovering your limits and motivations on the Jiu Jitsu mat would involve trial & error, failure and correction, and a continual dance with your own context-dependent limitations, a dog’s path to scent work mastery should afford the dog his own experience of these things.

Reading The Tap Out

Even though there is not a universal tap out signal used when practicing scent work, dogs do communicate their need to end the search. Most dogs use some or all of these behaviors in a repeating pattern: endlessly searching without making progress; switching over to intense and repeated focus on distractions; checking in with the handler; refusing to move on from a found hide; expanding the searchable area, moving further and further away from odor source, and staying out at the fringes of odor.

If you imagine any of these behaviors in the context of grappling in Jiu Jitsu, the dog is finding himself immobilized and without a way out, and after a bit of struggle, he is tapping out. If we were to watch a human struggle, tap out, and not be released, that human would begin to panic, become more susceptible to injury, and be less confident next time he got on the mat to roll.

Even though your dog is not being physically restrained by environment or odor, he is sometimes under a form of restraint by way of a mental or physical barrier to advancing on a problem, or because of the leash and your body language, or your mindset. It’s amazing how some dogs feel immobilized by their handlers and respond by no longer actively engaging odor, instead, they submit to what they think their handlers want.

Given the right environment, a dog can attempt to tap out by escaping to distraction: finding something to pee on; finding somewhere to poop; finding something to eat; finding someone to jump on excitedly. Even when a dog taps out in this way, we often violate their need for safety and respect and force them to remain in an unwinnable scenario.

All of these behaviors we might see used to signal a tap out can also be used in the course of advancing on odor puzzles or overcoming misunderstanding between dog and handler. It’s all about context.

Tapping Out To Make A Stronger Team

A handler’s first concern when grappling with the idea of supporting their dog’s need to tap out is, “won’t my dog just get worse at scent work if I don’t make him keep trying?” Nope. Your dog will get worse at scent work if he has to keep trying when he feels he can’t – or doesn’t want to try to – overcome the struggle. He will get worse at scent work if he isn’t able to set his own definition of struggle. Imagine if you were in a chokehold and felt you were blacking out, so you tapped your opponent, but your opponent decided you were fine. That’s an extreme image, but some dogs are sensitive performers who find it very uncomfortable to be in an inescapable problem – or to be in a problem where escape is possible, but completely out of their control. Building a safety net, a trust and respect for your dog’s needs, will foster increased confidence and increased desire to push the limits of challenge.

When Tapping Out Fades Away, Someone Has to Stop The Match

A confident dog who feels respected and safe will become bolder and take on greater scent challenges without needing to tap out. All good, right?! Well, there’s sometimes more risk of injury when no one wants to tap out. In martial arts and boxing, participants have been seriously injured or died because they have so much confidence and drive that tapping out has faded away as a personal option for safety.

A highly driven, confident scent work dog will work to exhaustion to solve an odor problem or to resolve a communication issue. In some cases, this type of dog is at actual physical risk when pursuing scent to source, more often, there’s a mental toll taken if this dog were to search endlessly. For dogs who show these traits, the handler has to act as referee and know when to call if for the physical and mental well-being of the dog. It’s no great accomplishment if you can tolerate a chokehold to the point of passing out. It’s not winning if your dog can search endlessly without progress.

A wise athlete recognizes that tapping out preserves their physical and mental well-being and ensures their ability to make progress in future training sessions and competitions. A wise handler will take care of his dog in a similar manner, not risking the future of their teamwork just because the dog is willing to work endlessly or because the handler can control the dog to keep trying.

The Art Of Fostering Growth

Until you’ve mastered all of the above, there’s no point in trying to push your dog to grow his skills in scent work. Once you understand your dog’s signals for tapping out, once you have the optimal grip on protecting your dog’s physical and mental well-being, then you can begin to participate in your dog’s experience of facing his limitations and choosing to push beyond them.

For dogs who have given up on tapping out, this is relatively easy: under certain circumstances – when you believe a solution to the scent problem is attainable – you just let the dog work and work and work. Take care not to do this often, and try to learn from your experiences. Ideally, you want the dog to gain something from the effort.

For dogs who typically exhibit tapping out signals, you can either do nothing/give no response and let the dog choose to push past the desire to tap out, or you can respond to the tapping out signal with a call to return to focus. You can do this in a number of ways: with voice cues, with leash control, with a restart, etc. Typically, if your dog is to get some value out of this experience, you should not have to “override” the tap out more than once or twice before seeing your dog make progress and arrive at a solution to the odor problem. Do not get lured into the prospect of assuming a particular search is very doable for your dog and repeatedly override his attempts to tap out. This does not result in growth, it reverses growth.

The Joy Of A Dog Who Has Found His Growth Zone

If you take your time learning your dog’s scent work patterns, preferences, style, and tap out signals, you might experience the immense joy of relating to your dog as your partner, not as your subordinate. When your dog is your partner, you listen to him, you respect him, you honor him, and you support him. When your dog is your partner, you put great effort into understanding his desire for challenge and his relationship with struggle. You take care to let him reveal these things to you rather than deciding these things for him. You know that when the two of you search it’s like Jocko says: “It’s not win or lose, it’s win or learn.”

Just as a white belt in Jiu Jitsu begins to love the experience of rolling with a world-class black belt and getting crushed as much as he loves grappling with a newbie and dominating, your dog can find a similar joy in encountering a variety of search challenges.

Let Go And Let The Confidence Flow

Scent work should be an activity your dog feels confident and motivated to grow in. You should also feel confident and motivated as your dog’s partner, knowing that you can learn your dog’s signal for tapping out and your dog’s signal for pushing the limits. If you or your dog are not experiencing confidence and the desire to grow, just pick an environment where you can let go of your worries and just let your dog show you what he wants to show you during his searches. Your dog will reveal everything you need to know, and your confidence will follow.

As Jocko would say, “get after it!”

Happy Sniffing!