Ep. 145: Scent Work, Behavior and Invasive Species with Melissa McCue-McGrath

In this episode, we have the distinct privilege of speaking with Melissa McCue-McGrath about how she has used Scent Work training within her behavior modification programs, her participation in the Invasive Species Detection Study 2024 for the Spotted Lantern Fly and her upcoming book, Misadventures of the World's Okayest Dog Trainer.

This discussion highlights the power of Scent Work, how it can not only build a dog's confidence, but deepen the relationship between dog and handler and that as an activity it encompasses so much more than competition or trialing.

Melissa also mentioned how horses are being trained to do SAR work, learn more about this here.

Speakers:

• Melissa McCue-McGrath
• Dianna L. Santos

TRANSCRIPT

Dianna L. Santos (00:00:01):
Welcome to the All About That Scent Work Podcast. In this podcast, we talk about all things at Scent Work that can include training tips, a behind the scenes look at what your instructor or trial official is going through and much more. In this episode, I have the distinct privilege of speaking to Melissa Cue-McGrath, all about her participation in the Spotted Lantern Fly Program and much more. So before we start diving into the episode itself, let me do a very quick introduction of myself. My name is Dianna Santos. I'm the Owner and Lead Instructor of Scent Work University. This is an online dog training platform where we provide online courses, webinars, seminars, virtual events, and ebooks, a regular updated blog, the All About Scent Work Podcast, free training tips, free livestreams, instructor mentorship program, and so much more, all focused on Scent Work. So regardless of where you are in your sniffing journey, you're just getting started, you're looking to develop some more advanced skills, you're interested in competing or you're trialing even at the upper levels, we likely have a training solution for you.

(00:00:55):
So I should know a little bit more about me. Let's dive into the episode itself.

(00:01:02):
So in this episode, I'm very delighted to have a conversation with Melissa McCue-McGrath, all about her participation in Scent Work and participating in a study about training dogs to detect the spotted lanternfly. Very exciting stuff. Let's have a listen to that conversation. We are delighted to be talking today with a wonderful speaker who has been involved in so many different things, but I cannot do any of it justice. We are going to allow her to tell us what she's been involved with. Melissa, can you give us a little bit of a background on yourself, please?

Melissa McCue-McGrath (00:01:33):
Sure. My name's Melissa McCue-McGrath. I'm an animal training instructor certified through the PACT Organization in the UK actually. And if you hear my voice, you might realize she sounds American because she sets her Rs hard. That would be correct. I was the first American assessed and credential through PACT and also through the Animal Behavior and Training Council in the UK. And I've been doing scent work for, I'd say probably a little over 10 years at this point. I've used it in a behavior realm for about that long. Most of my work was in the city of Boston where behaviorally these dogs would come completely overwhelmed, sound sensitive, really struggling in urban environments, especially in condos or high-rise apartment buildings where dogs on the fifth floor can smell what deodorant or not the guy on the first floor is wearing. Yes. And just being overwhelmed with sounds like toddlers running in the adjacent apartment or whatever.

(00:02:36):
So trying to find creative ways for these dogs to get mental stimulation and to have successes, we leaned heavily on scent work. So almost all of the scent work that I have done was never done competitively or for an ORT order recognition test for those who are ... If this is your first time listening to Diana's podcast, odor recognition test, but more for behavior work, confidence and coping mechanisms. Then I moved to Maine where I grew up. I affectionately say that we grew up with an accidental sled dog family, like an accidental sled dog team when I was a kid. And so I spent 20 years in Boston after that, and then I've been back in Maine for five years. When I moved here, there was a study, which we're going to be talking about in a little bit. It was a multi-university study where they were looking at pet dog trainers like me to see if we could train pet dogs like many of your listeners have to find an invasive species.

(00:03:35):
So I got kind of into that and now I have an invasive species detection dog who goes around the state of Maine and we talk to people about scent work, behavior, what animals can do for us with their noses, not just dogs. In fact, in Maine, we have two horses that are trained in search and rescue work, so they find the missing people, which is really cool. And how animals using scent can benefit humans. And that's been kind of my kick for the last five years. And we'll see what the next one brings when I get another dog who doesn't want to do the thing that I'm into. Right.

Dianna L. Santos (00:04:16):
Well, that's an amazing journey and a story. And I love the way that you have been embracing scent work and the way that you've been leveraging it in order to help the dogs and their people. I think that's a really impressive way of framing it. So let's start off first with the behavioral piece and then we'll talk about the invasive species part. So what are some of the things that you saw as far as when you were using set Work for your behavioral clients? What were some of the ways that you were leveraging that?

Melissa McCue-McGrath (00:04:42):
Sure. In the city, when we're walking down sidewalks or hallways, which I call inside sidewalks, they are particularly spooky for some dogs who have not really acclimated to how humans human. Humans say hi, chest to chest, face-to-face. If you and I were in a room, we'd probably be facing each other pretty front and on and having this conversation. Dogs, when they first meet each other, do the nose to butt circle dance,

(00:05:16):
And sidewalks do not lend themselves nicely to that. When you're holding a dog back on a leash, which is required for their safety, the safety of others and leash laws and stuff like that, just want to make sure everybody's safe and happy and healthy as best as we can. That can feed into frustration, frustration, reactivity, frustration, aggression. And then dogs walking head to head and they see each other and they're like, "You want to go? " That doesn't really make for an enjoyable walk for many people or those dogs. And so these people are trying to cross the street. Well, they might not be able to cross the street because there's four lanes of traffic right there and you don't have the little walkie signal guy that says you can cross. So you might be limited in what you can do. You can't always just turn around and go somewhere else because there might be another threat behind you as far as the dog is concerned.

(00:06:13):
So using scent work, being able to teach a dog an accurate and consistent cue that when I say this word, you're going to play this game, get your nose down, start huffing for food, these dogs could come off of maybe the sidewalk and in a little garden area or in a park just off the sidewalk a little bit. So now we're taking them off that center line. I can turn the dog around so their tail is facing the oncoming threat, what they perceive as an oncoming threat. And also one thing that I always tell my students is the bigger the eyes, the smaller the nose. When maybe you or I ... I'm not going to throw you under this bus. I don't know you that well. If I see a police officer with a little radar gun and I'm driving probably five to eight miles over the speed limit, I will almost always swear like a pirate, inhale sharply, my entire body tenses up and my foot will hit the brake.

(00:07:14):
Even if I was going the speed limit, my body would probably go through that same series of events. That kick of adrenaline kicks in, fight, flight, freeze, fawn. It's really hard to freeze if you're in a moving car. You can't really fawn until the police officer comes over and you have somebody to fawn too. "I didn't mean to bat bat my pretty little eyes." So you really only have fight or flight. So we're slowing our vehicle down, we're breathing shallowly, eyes are big. We're looking to see if, well, did he get me? And after a few minutes, that adrenaline goes away a little bit. We kind of shake it off in our own way, exhale. But while we're breathing, it's like this shallow ... It's not a good yoga breath. It's not a good time for deep breathing, but our eyes are huge and we're trying to take in the environment.

(00:08:07):
When dogs get stressed and they get scared or spooked, something comes around a corner or dog walking towards them, they do something very similar. They will close their mouth. That's actually one of the things in behavior that we tell our owners to look for. What is the dog's face telling you? Which means they kind of have to get up ahead of the dog a little bit because usually they're just behind and they see the ears and the tail. But if they can see the front of the dog, they'll see big eyes, closed mouth.

(00:08:37):
I just kind of did duck face on the Zoom, but they close their mouth, eyes are wide, and they're not breathing in very well. Then they will stick out their tongue. In conventional dog training and behavior, we would call that a lip flick. It's one of those lower level signs of stress that we look for in our dogs, but in scent work, that's a way that they're bringing in information about the environment around them. With the Vomero nasal organ behind those front teeth for these dogs, they stick out that tongue aquaphilic, meaning liking water, scent molecules, pheromone molecules, things like that stick to that tongue and they're getting more information about the environment around them. I am convinced that is why dogs lip flick when they're a little bit distressed because they're trying to get information, but they're not breathing. So when they finally can breathe, you'll see those eyes get smaller.

(00:09:35):
And so one thing I'll tell my students, especially in behavior work for scent work, is the bigger the eyes, the smaller the nose. And so if I can get them to shut their eyes off just a little bit and breathe, they are bringing in more appropriate information about the situation in front of them, about the dog. If they're dog reactive, about the dog, that might be, who knows, 30 yards away.

(00:09:59):
The situation around them, if they can breathe a little bit better, they will bring in information appropriately instead of just like, "Oh beep, there's something there and I need to just lose my mind at it. " So scent work has been very useful for some of these dogs just to have a different way of coping without the, "Look at me, look at me, Look at me. "

(00:10:21):
Training that was really dominant in the '90s, even in positive reinforcement circles, just don't breathe, just look at me while this big scary thing's over there or while this thing that you're confused or concerned with is over there. I want them breathing. It works better for us humans. Studies show that that's true. And while many of our studies for dogs and for humans tend to be very similar, we pull from animal studies to inform where we can look for human studies and vice versa. Studies with breathing deeply does indicate that we are calmer, able to assess more appropriately and not freak the F out.

Dianna L. Santos (00:11:03):
So I think that's all very interesting. And it's something that we definitely see even just within the context of Scent Work where potentially a dog who particularly may have dog sensitivity issues may suddenly become very enamored with other doggy odor. And you can almost see them. The eyes get bigger, they get really close to that spot and they're just so focused on it. It's almost as if they have blinders on. And then if they're able to broaden that aperture, if the odor, the Birch, the food, whatever it is that you're using, does actually come in and you can kind of see them blink and go, "Oh, wait, there's more for me to take in. I don't just have to be focused on this thing. It's almost this circular type of reinforcement. It's scary, but I got to sniff it more to see just how scary it is and let me sniff it some more." If you can broaden that aperture for them, that's a very powerful thing to get them out of that head space.

(00:11:59):
So I find that analogy that you're talking about fascinating because we definitely do see that in searches as well.

Melissa McCue-McGrath (00:12:05):
Yeah. I like to think of it as the oroboros, the snake eating its own tail.

(00:12:09):
So then they're looking at something, they're not breathing as well, then they're more concerned about it so their eyes are bigger and then they're breathing less and then they can fight, flight, freeze, fawn. What I want to do is see if we can get them to regurgitate that tail and unwind a bit, spiral in the other direction where it's a more positive experience. I had a dog, actually, she was one of the dogs in this study that we're going to get to in a bit. Her name was June and we had to pull her because of emotional reasons and it was a valid pull. But she's still with me. She can find this odor that we're going to discuss later. And she's such a good dog as long as she's in her training room and she has the same spot every week. I have been teaching scent work classes at 9:00 AM and 10:00 AM every Sunday for four years with this same two groups of students.

(00:13:02):
So they've gotten to know each other quite well. And June is in the second hour. My boss decided that she was going to, every fifth week, have a pop-up class. So instead of sent work with these normal students, we would maybe introduce an agility one-off or a recall one-off or something just to give the spot to somebody else for a

Dianna L. Santos (00:13:24):
Bit,

Melissa McCue-McGrath (00:13:25):
Which is fair. But June signed up for that agility class. This is a dog that is not on any other training aside from scent work. She has very big feelings and things have to be very particular for her to be successful. She was in a different spot in the room, lost her mind. There were three other dogs who she did not know. There were other people in the room that she did not know. And she was like, "This is not fair. I

(00:13:54):
Don't like this. " So the owner brings the dog out and we're trying to do this agility thing and there's a little pop-up tunnel. It's not like the standard tunnel with the accordion. It was just a little pop-up thing. It looked almost like a laundry basket pop-up thing from

(00:14:10):
College that you would just cut the bottom out of. And we're just trying to see if June can get her head in there. And she's like, "No, thank you. " Bark, bark, bark. I ate everybody. If she had middle fingers, we would see them. And then I just looked at my assistant and we both seemed to get to the same place at the same time. And she ran over to the freezer where I keep the spotted lanternfly eggs, which are the invasive that she knows. And I put them in the tunnel. That dog just like, oh, okay. Sniff walked through the tunnel and

(00:14:45):
Picked up the lantern fly eggs on her way out and dropped them for us on the floor. Here they are. I found them. Just the amount of confidence that she had just being able to like, "Hey, this means I can cope. I got this. " It was almost like the confidence she needed to be able to do something different. And it was just such a real cool, real world experience thing to observe. It really does make her life better.

Dianna L. Santos (00:15:14):
Absolutely. I think that's a fantastic anecdote for people to recognize that we're probably never going to be able to truly appreciate what Scent Work is giving to our dogs because we can't get into their heads. We can try very hard, but we are not dogs. But to allow them to have the ability to truly, in a human world, embrace being a dog and to also do this partnership with their person so that you're deepening that relationship. And it's all based upon I trust you dog and I want you to also trust me and they have to for the game to work. All of that is so incredibly beneficial so that you can see the kinds of results that you were just talking about with June, that that kind of deep seeded understanding of, I learned this skill to find this particular type of odor and I have all of these emotions attached to that, all this confidence, all of this independence, this problem solving, and I feel powerful as a dog to do these things, those are the things that we should always be reminding ourselves of that this is what the activity is all about.

(00:16:27):
Yes, the ribbons and the tiles are nice, you have sure or whatever, but it's the actual wonderfulness that we're doing with our dogs to give them this opportunity. I love that story. That's made my whole day. Thank you.

Melissa McCue-McGrath (00:16:38):
Oh, yay. It made my whole week watching it, just watching this dog going, woof, woof, and just so upset. And you could even see it in the owner's face too, did I make a mistake? You could just see her

(00:16:53):
And she comes not for her enjoyment, but for her dog's enjoyment. She wants her dog to have a good time. She wants her dog to be successful. She wants her dog to get out of the house. And this is the one safe place that she has just being able to see her overcome it and be like, "Oh, I got that. I know what I'm supposed to do. This is the reinforcing thing. I find this and then I get a cookie." It was a real consequence and June figured it out and she was like, "This is great. Why didn't you say so 20 minutes ago?" This is what we were doing.

Dianna L. Santos (00:17:27):
Because then you could have had me sit in a different spot and you could have had these other dogs in here, but if you just told me that we were finding the eggs, I would've been fine.

Melissa McCue-McGrath (00:17:34):
I changed the rules on her and I changed the expectation for her and that was unfair for her. And then as soon as I gave her the thing she was expecting, she's like, "Okay, I can do whatever. It's Fine.

(00:17:48):
We got this.

Dianna L. Santos (00:17:50):
" You humans do weird things and that's totally fine. Just show me where the eggs are.

Melissa McCue-McGrath (00:17:55):
You want me to go over a jump?

Dianna L. Santos (00:17:56):
Right.

Melissa McCue-McGrath (00:17:57):
Hey, fine, I guess.

Dianna L. Santos (00:18:01):
So that leads us really nicely into talking about the study that you were involved in. So you can give us a little bit of a background on all of that, please.

Melissa McCue-McGrath (00:18:08):
Absolutely. So in 2023, I'm not sure where many of your listeners are, but some of your listeners might actually have heard about this invasive called the Spotted Lantern Fly. And these two universities, Texas Tech and Virginia Tech teamed up with all of the smart people that they had. There were plant forensic people, botanists, horticulturalists because this bug attacks plant life and trees and crops and animal behaviorists, animal people, scientists that studied nature in general, they all got together and they're like, okay, can we, using all of our powers combined, come up with a study where we can see if pet dog owners can get their dogs to find this invasive species so that way when they're out on their nighttime walk, they might be able to find the eggs of this invasive and kill them at the site without, and then therefore hopefully reducing the population of this bug.

(00:19:19):
What makes this bug so dangerous is that it is not very picky. One researcher, and I thought this was rude because if this was a person, this would just be one of the meanest things to say. Was it opportune breeder? Oh, no, lazy breeder and opportune layer. I was like, "It's just route." And so this bug will eat hops, grapes, hardwood, stone fruit trees, pretty much whatever crop, you name it, it will feed off of it. Although its preferred food is the tree of heaven, which is also an invasive species because of course it is. And it started, this invasion started in Pennsylvania in 2014. So it got to the point where in Pennsylvania, by the county level, they would have quarantines. By the time we were going into 2020, they had been doing quarantining in a totally different way way before we all thought it was cool and decided to do it as well.

(00:20:22):
But their egg masses that they will lay, they will put them on brick walls, on trees, barns, kids' playground equipment, and cars. The egg masses, when they vomit up this stuff called honeydew to protect the egg mass, it looks like dirt spatter or mud spatter. And so it's really hard to tell, is that mud spatter or is that an egg mass, which makes it really challenging for people to find it. So if they're laying the eggs on cars and you're taking that car over state lines or county lines, and then those eggs hatch, now we have a spreading problem. And that spreading problem went from, I believe it was 14 states in 2023 when I first heard about the study to 19 states today, including, I'm up in Maine, neighboring New Hampshire. It's in Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and as far south as Georgia, and it's going west and mostly south, but it's eeking north, and that's bad.

(00:21:34):
And the reason it's even more invasive, more troubling is that same honeydew that they yack up to protect the egg masses. It's very sticky and kind of sweet, and it attracts a black city mold, and it's that mold that will decimate entire crops.

(00:21:56):
So when it gets to Maine, the scientists here are saying it will take out 70 different crops here in our state. We just had Maple Weekend where all of the different farms and different organizations and companies will tap maple trees through February and March, and then they sell syrup and sell syrupy things and mapley things through this one weekend in March, which was last weekend for us. That could go away when this bug gets here. It's not great. So they wanted to see if they could get ahead of this invasion and they reached out to ... You'll appreciate this. They initially reached out to nose work people, people who have competed in nose work. What ended up happening was it got out in the dog community. And so when they had their information Zoom to say, "Hey, this is what we're going to do. We would like to tap some dog people.

(00:22:50):
" I think they were only expecting 20 or 30 people to join the Zoom. 2,000 people logged in. They had to shut down the meeting and buy a bigger Zoom to host everyone who were like, "My dog's a superhero." So of those 2,000 people, they tapped 180 teams, 150 humans and 180 dogs, because some people have more than one dog, all over the country to see if we could train these dogs to find the invasive eggs, like the invasive species egg masses. And the answer was a resounding yes, but I'm going to pause here in case you had questions because I'm just, here's a train, I'm gone.

Dianna L. Santos (00:23:34):
No, you're doing a great job. So as far as what was your thought process when you first learned about this and how comfortable were you with making the shift from what you had been doing to doing something like this? Because they're not the same.

Melissa McCue-McGrath (00:23:51):
They are not. And I think that's the takeaway that I want people to have in their pocket, be curious about this and go for it and try it. But these are very different things. Like I said before, most of my work was using this for behavior work and in behavior plans and to give dogs a way to feel safe in new environments. And what they were asking for initially were NACSW people to come in with their competitive dogs and NACSW trainers to come in with their competitive training methodology. And what they ... I don't know how many of the teams were through the National Association of Canine Scent Work. I do know that I am not one.

(00:24:39):
And so when they gave us the task, I was very clear with my students when I said, "Okay, I would like to try this, but only if my existing Scent Work students are interested. And if they're interested, then I'll put in as an instructor and you eight or 10 can sign up if you want to, and we'll do this together." What happened with the rest of the country was that the trainer would sign up as a trainer, and if there were students or dog handlers that wanted to try it, they would just be teamed up. Some of them knew each other, some of them were strangers, but for us, because we've really been through it, when you're a behavior person, you get really close to your clients and those dogs and you advocate for them fiercely, and you're almost like their aunt, the dog's aunt, you're on their team.

(00:25:39):
And so I had all known dogs. I also was told through the course of the study that there was no guidance as to how we were going to train these dogs. We had 14 weeks to train to an ORT, theodor recognition test, and none of these dogs had ever done an ORT. Whereas some of the other teams, this is old hat. They're so good at ORTs because they're doing it for Birch and Clove and Anis and Cyprus and whatever they can find. But for us, it was like, okay, well, we're going to use this box game in a very rigid way, which was not how we had used it before. We had to train for blanks, which was incredibly challenging for these dogs because for behavior work, my mantra is every time you say the F word, there better be something for them to find.

(00:26:37):
And for competition, you get to a certain level of competition, they stay find it, and there might not be something for them to find, which is a little bit more realistic because if we're taking these dogs out to the woods,

(00:26:51):
There might not be spotted lanternfly. When a police officer takes their dog into the big warehouse that they got a big tip, there might not be cocaine in there. There might not be a missing person in this part of the woods that you're looking for. So being able to handle blanks or that it's not here was, I think, emotionally crippling for all six of the dogs in my cohort, but they were able to overcome it enough to get through the test or the first of three tests really. But yeah, I hope that answered the question.

Dianna L. Santos (00:27:28):
Yeah, no, no. It's very good insight as far as the difference that ... How could I put this? That sniffing and scenting lives in so many different little areas and it's so unique depending on how you're attacking it, depending on what you're doing with it. And the way that you're describing as far as, okay, so we don't have direction on how it is we need to do this, but we're being told that we have to use this box and we're going to have to pass an odor recognition test for this novel thing that these dogs have never seen before now. We got to make sure we're building up some value in that. We also have to make certain that they're not just poking at every single box and they're not also alerting on things that they shouldn't be. Well, they. So it is absolutely a big struggle and it's a lot of pressure because this isn't just a, "Well, if we don't get it this week, no big deal. No, we have a deadline."

Melissa McCue-McGrath (00:28:27):
That was the hard thing. That was the hardest thing for these dogs. Learning the novel odor actually took them four trials and then they're like, "We're on it. " Within the hour class, every dog was on it. What became problematic for us was that we're in Maine and the first cohort went, I believe it was May to September. Our cohort went December through March in Maine, and we had to find grass as a distractor. How are we going to do that when we've got two inches of ice everywhere? So we're outside with hardcore staplers and hammers, whatever we could find to hammer through the ice to grab three blades of struggling grass to put in the box. Virginia didn't have to do this.

(00:29:18):
Florida didn't have to do this. They have to deal with alligators, but we couldn't get grass. It was a statewide emergency. We had such an intense ice storm that the Atlantic Ocean ate half of Kennebunkport. I'm in Kennebunk. So our neighboring town was eaten by the ocean. All of this was happening while we're trying to train these six dogs to like, "Hey, let's go find these flies, ha, ha, ha." And the state was basically crumbling around us while we were trying to do this, but it was the pressure a The people, I think that was really the bigger thing than it was the pressure on the dogs.

Dianna L. Santos (00:30:05):
Yes. And I think that's a very important thing to emphasize is a couple things you've pointed out. First of all, that your dogs were brilliant and they were like, "Oh yeah, sure. You want me to find this now? No problem. I got the nose, I got this. " But then you're adding in all of this, the pressure of what's going on in the state, the fact that here we are in Maine underneath all of these ridiculous conditions, weather, white stuff, ice, yucky. And then we also have this expectation of we have a deadline and we want to make sure that we are performing well, that we're showing our dogs can do this. Which again, I'm going to make a statement, you feel free to say that, "Mom, I'm not sure I can entirely agree with that, but I think it will be agreeable." Is that when people have behavioral dogs, they are desperately trying to show everyone, "My dog is normal.

(00:31:02):
My dog is a good dog. My dog is a wonderful dog." And to be tapped for something like this would be such a ... I can almost imagine, I can almost visualize the daydreaming they must have done of this is the thing. I can now talk around the coffee table, around the kitchen table. Do you know about Phyto? Fino is inside a study and they're finding these invasive little eggs and they're going to make sure we still have maple syrup. It's going to be so amazing. They are going to be a hero dog and this is the best. So from a human perspective, building that all up from your psyche, and then it just seems like, well, not only do I have to overcome the fact that this is a brand new thing, it's all kind of scary, but now mother nature is literally against us with the weather and we have this deadline and this is all new and oh my God.

(00:31:52):
And then the dog's like, "Mama, are you okay?"

Melissa McCue-McGrath (00:31:54):
Yeah. And on top of it, each of us had our own personal journey we were going through. For us, my daughter missed seven months of middle school because she had panic attacks so strong she couldn't get into the building. Another student, her mom had Alzheimer's and eventually succumbed to the disease during this study. Every single one of us had something big outside of this study. And so while one of us would break down in tears if our dogs couldn't find the thing or was looking for it but wasn't alerting right or whatever invisible pressure they had on themselves of how they wanted this to look, forgetting. And I had to keep reminding them, guys, this is for fun. And they had to remind me a couple times too when I was overwhelmed with things. So it kind of felt like a Ferris wheel where one week I would be up at the talk going, "I'm losing it.

(00:33:00):
" And then the next week I was okay, but then Marianne was having a bad day and then we'd all rally around her. And then the next week, "Oh no, Sarah, your mom." And so it was like we were all both vulnerable enough with each other. And even though we might not have known all the details, but we've seen some things together, we all just felt safe enough to fall apart much like our dogs do in that space. So it was like we were the reactive dogs in that class. It was such a bizarre experience. And I can't articulate it in a way that I think most people would really grasp, but the pressure that we had on ourselves because of what you were saying, I think there was this big part of, oh my gosh, our very best bad dogs were picked to be part of this study and they're not NACSW dogs.

(00:33:59):
These dogs have never been to a trial, but they picked us. So now we got to go and do this thing and save our environment.

Dianna L. Santos (00:34:08):
Right.

Melissa McCue-McGrath (00:34:09):
There's no pressure.

Dianna L. Santos (00:34:14):
We can save the whole industry of our state. No pressure at all.

Melissa McCue-McGrath (00:34:18):
We're fine. Fire behind us, the dog sipping coffee.

Dianna L. Santos (00:34:23):
Exactly. So how did it all go? How did you guys do at the end?

Melissa McCue-McGrath (00:34:30):
Oh my gosh, I'm so proud of these dogs, Diana. These dogs, they have my whole heart. So two months in, we pulled my dog captain out of the study. He was at the time, I think he was 10, and my 11-year-old daughter was the one who put him on this odor. So I would teach either on Zoom or in person. My daughter would log in and work captain while I was teaching these other students. So he was put on odor by my child who's been working with him since ... I mean, she was three when he came into our house and they've been thick as thieves ever since. So that was a cool bragging point. But two months in, we had to pull him because he had what was described to me in the vet clinic as, well, this is probably cancer, great. He had such chronic sinus infections and there was no, what do you call it?

(00:35:33):
An obstruction up in there that was causing it. There was no fungal mass. There was nothing up there. So they were like, well, this is probably cancer and he's going to be dead in three months. So we're like, great. I mean, they worded it much nicer than that or a little nicer than that, but we were devastated. So I pulled him from this study and then we got him the $3,000 CT scan that said nothing. And I was so happy. I've never been more happy to throw $3,000 somewhere and not have an answer because not having an answer meant he didn't have cancer and he wasn't going to die. He's still here. It's been two and a half years and he's still scenting and he's still sniffing. So he would go out, even though he was pulled from the study initially in April when we had to do what's called the field test.

(00:36:26):
So we did the odor recognition test first in the boxes. Four of the six dogs passed the odor recognition test. Blanks were hard across the board. They had to get at least 80% or higher to go on to the next level. So I started with six. Captain had a medical thing. The fifth dog was June, who we had discussed before. During our odor recognition test, we had lost power. As I had mentioned, the Atlantic tried to eat our county.

(00:36:58):
So what ended up happening was a friend of mine up near Portland, her name is Nancy, was like, "Hey, I've got a space. You can use it. " We're like, "Great." So we moved all of our dogs to a place that had heat and power. It was awesome, but forgetting, these are behavior cases and shifting locations is not ideal. So while we were all sitting around going, "Well, what else are we going to do today? We might as well try it. " Had I thought for four seconds as a behavior person instead of a, "Hey, let's go do scent work out in this new place." I absolutely set my dogs up to fail that day and I feel terrible. One dog passed their odor recognition test on the first try,

(00:37:44):
One passed on the second try the day after that power outage situation. The next week, the next two passed. So total of four passed the odor recognition test. June was senting in this new location and a firetruck went by and then she wouldn't search for lanternfly at all for months. She was so traumatized by it. So the owner came to me and was very understandably upset and was like, "I have to pull her because this isn't fun for her." And I'm like, "I agree with you. I am never going to make a student keep going with something when their dog is not enjoying it. That was never the point of this. They're not military dogs.

(00:38:31):
These are your pet dogs and we will always advocate for them." So we pulled June from that study. So those two were pulled. So the other four went on. Then I planted four or five of the lantern fly eggs in the woods behind my house and in a field on my property, and we let them go find it for their field evaluation. Captain cleared both courses to make sure everything was safe for them. So he was still able to find them. He found all the odors prior to them trying the test, but we had to have two tests because one dog, because my little wonky behavior dogs, one dog was afraid of the woods because he stepped on a stick once and it made him very spooky of woods. So he lives in Pain. There's only so much you can do. So we prepared a field course for him.

(00:39:31):
And then the ones who couldn't handle fields because, oh my God, chipmunks went into the woods to go find. So they could pick which course they wanted to give their dog a good option of success, hopefully. And all four dogs passed the field evaluation, which is great. So of the six forecast and today at the Animal Welfare Society in Kennebunk where I teach, we now have 22 dogs on spotted lanternfly odor. They can find it all in a controlled setting. I feel that's very important to note and they can find it pretty reliably, although we do not train for blanks. These are just dogs having fun and all the owners are like, "Oh my God, my dog can find an invasive species." So it's been quite fun over the last couple of years to still have these satchels of decaying gross eggs, but the dogs are loving it.

(00:40:29):
I think it's most of their favorite odor compared to scent oils, which I think are maybe a little sharp and super potent for them. They're happy to look for them and they will. But if I put down lanternfly, those dogs are like middle finger to the clove oil and they're all in on looking for lantern fly.

Dianna L. Santos (00:40:48):
And that makes a lot of sense. That's something that I definitely can say that is similar to things I've seen throughout my career, is particularly for dogs who are more on the behavioral spectrum. Those essential oils can absolutely cause them to be like, "Ugh, why do you want me to find that? " Or they just absolutely are ... I've had one dog that would just quiver. They would just come in the room and they'd be like, "Oh my God, what is it in here? This is terrible."

Melissa McCue-McGrath (00:41:14):
It's so overpowering. It's like a perfume counter at the mall in the 80s where they would just blow it in your face.

Dianna L. Santos (00:41:19):
Yes, absolutely. It's crazy. So I love the fact that these dogs in particular have this outlet where they're able to find something that is obviously more natural,

(00:41:31):
That they'd be able to then put that together and still have all the same benefits that we have with what we call traditional Scent Work, but it doesn't have all the other stuff added onto it. But I love all the stuff that you're talking about to really highlight for people. First of all, that the fact that you have pet dogs doing this is amazing and wonderful and fantastic. But the highlighting of the process that this is something that does take concentration and time and training and patience and trials of training to determine, are we actually getting to a goal that you actually have to have a goal, that this is going to take repetitions and the whole thing that you're talking about as far as, "Oh, so you don't like going into the woods because you stepped onto a stick, but the exacts might actually be inside of the woods." So these kinds of things, they're really good things for us to remind ourselves of that the activity of Scent Work started off from people who were involved in real detection, quote unquote, real detection and they were just trying to play around with shelter dogs so that they could provide them with some enrichment.

(00:42:44):
But it's important, I think, for us to remind ourselves that when we are doing set Work the Activity the way most of us think about it, we're not doing real detection in that there isn't a bomb out there that's going to blow everybody up if we don't find it.

(00:43:01):
If we don't find the birdsheide, it's okay. We will live to see another day. And if the dog decides, "I'm not going in those woods because those sticks bit my feet before," then you know what? We're not going to put hides in the woods. That's totally fine. So I love the fact with all these things that you're talking about, that it can just help people appreciate just how wonderful this activity can be and how many flavors of it there is for us to potentially participate in. And I think it's amazing that you have worked with so many teams over this time so that you have so many dogs now who are very proudly wearing the title of pet who now says, "I too can find this invasive species, mother."

Melissa McCue-McGrath (00:43:43):
Yes. And they're so happy when they come into class and the owners kind of walk out a little puffy

(00:43:51):
And it's really fun to watch. We had one dog, Benny, he's always been a little awkward. He's a big old lab. I didn't know this until much, much later in Benny's journey with me. I think I'd been working with him for two years at this point, mostly in a sports or for fun capacity, but I guess he was found as a puppy and had been stabbed or had a stabbed wound between his shoulder blades at the base of his neck. So he had a bunch of scar tissue there, so his gait was always awkward, understandably so. And so he would look for things. He loved looking for flies, a little less so on some of the other odors, but he'd always come out and he was just such a big happy lab. He would just like, "Oh, look, you've got little pencil boxes out. I'm going to pick them up and throw them around the room." And then he's like, "Oh, look, there's an odor." So everything was a game to Benny, which was awesome.

(00:44:52):
I want to come back in another life half as happy as Benny, but there was a horrible accident. He was hit by a car around Christmastime of this year in his own driveway. A car had come around a corner too fast and he was on his property and was hit by this car. They were not sure if he was going to survive. I will say he has survived. He is still coming to sent Work classes. The first week we saw Benny after the accident, he couldn't move. It was like watching a robot as it's kind of powering down where the moves

(00:45:33):
Are really janky, and it was almost like he didn't know where his back end was. Fast forward to a couple weeks. So then we started putting the hides at about nose height for him so he could get a little bit of success. We'd make the search area smaller. And he was heavily medicated for pain, understandably so, and still seemed to be game to search. And me and the owner, we were having very frank discussions about, okay, if he looks like he's not having fun, we're sending him home. This is not something that he has to do. But she's like, "But I want him to get out of our house." And I am curious about how much of that might still be like, "I want my old dog back after such a traumatic thing too." But each week watching Benny come in still as happy, if that were any human, we

(00:46:31):
Would not be ... I don't know how he can do this. It's magic to me. And each week he comes out a little smoother, a lot more confident. And he's like, "Here's the odor." And he's not false alerting. He's out there. He's like, "I know what I'm supposed to do and I'm going to do it. " And so the owner, I had built using climb tables, a little ramp that kind of came out and down, and I had hidden the odor up on top for the other dogs in the class. And for Benny, I put it down low because I didn't want him climbing. I'm not a physical therapist, I'm not a vet, and I want to make sure he's safe. That is my top priority. But he came out and he saw the climb tables and he remembers all of his classes and he's like, "Oh, pause up." And he just looked at his mom like the biggest grin, the biggest labby grin.

(00:47:26):
And she invited him to climb up and down. And he was so proud of himself. His whole body just started wiggling and he's like, "I did it. " And then he was able to find the odor and he sat. He's now going back to his old alert of sit. Sometimes he'll even give a down in response, but he always has a big happy face. And we're like, okay, as long as we see that, as long as that is what we are seeing and we are all watching it, it's not just in one of our heads, then we will keep doing this with him. And he's over the moon. We are making these accommodations for him, but he's also at times saying, "I can do this, guys." And giving him that opportunity to try without hurting himself, it's been really cool to watch and it's all because he just loves these damn flies.

Dianna L. Santos (00:48:30):
And this is what I love about this activity so very much is that it allows the dog to have a way to better communicate to us, "I want to do the thing." And it is not the same type of handler pressure point as with some other activities where it's like, "Well, I know that you really want me to do the thing, so I'm going to try." It's more just like, no, I want to do it. So as an example, I just put my little guy recently, my little tiny terrier on antlers finding- Oh, good. And he absolutely adores it. He's addicted. They live on my kitchen counter and he will bounce, bounce, bounce. And he asks for them all day long. And he's like, "I want to do more antlers." But it's what he wants to do. It's not so much ... He's asking me like, "Lady, look, you have one job in life.

(00:49:25):
Go hide the antler."

Melissa McCue-McGrath (00:49:28):
Use those thumbs and work for me.

Dianna L. Santos (00:49:32):
But that shift I think is extraordinarily important and very powerful and potent. And I love the story that you've been sharing because it shows that the dog is able to communicate and demonstrate, "I can do this. " And the fact that they're making the choices as opposed to us trying to pressure them, "Would you please do the thing?" So I love that dynamic shift. That's beautiful.

Melissa McCue-McGrath (00:49:57):
And these guys all work off leash. So we have a beautiful training area where we can gate things off. Every dog has their own little pod, because remember, most of them are reactive, not all, but most of them are, but they've gotten to a point where they can do these searches completely off leash while being watched by the other handlers. And I find scent work once they get the idea is the ultimate consent test. I don't want to get in that corner, but I can tell you from back here that it's over there. They'll go as far as they're comfortable and as they get better, they'll start to push and push and push that envelope. And if they're having a bad day, they'll sit further back. So it's almost like a barometer point where you can tell where are they today on a scale of one to freaked out, where are they?

(00:50:51):
And I think it's just such a beautiful consent test to see if they are willing to try a new thing. And because Benny's off leash, we're able to do this work and he's able to consent or not depending on the position. We're noticing he can't turn left very well, but turning right, he's great and backing up is a little hard. So we just have to make sure that we have plenty of room on both sides of him with all of these odor puzzles that if he gets into a corner, how does he get out? So we're always trying to think of how are we going to modify this search so it's still beneficial to him, it's safe for him and that he can move as comfortably as he can given that he was hit by a car three months ago. It really does force you as an instructor to look at the course in a whole new way, which I'm super appreciative as an instructor.

(00:51:52):
I just wish he didn't have to get hit by a car for it to really light that part of my brain up. You know what I mean?

Dianna L. Santos (00:51:58):
Yeah, no, and I think that that's a really good point that because it's the consent thing that you're talking about and the wonderful thing that Snet Work does is it forces you to really appreciate the entirety and totality of the environment and thinking about the entire sequence of what's going to be happening. So like what you were saying of, okay, maybe we want to develop, let's say, a confidence issue or we're trying to see how comfortable he is getting into this space. Wonderful, but now he got in the space. How is he going to get out?

Melissa McCue-McGrath (00:52:31):
Yeah.

Dianna L. Santos (00:52:31):
So being able to- He can get there. Now what? Exactly. So this is why this activity, again, is one of my favorites. And it's something that I've heard throughout my whole career that people particularly who are involved in behavior work, if they get involved in Scent Work, they just become obsessed because it is like the superpower. It does absolutely light up a different part of your brain and it allows you to connect with the dogs, but also the handlers at a different level. And it's also giving those handlers such a wonderful wealth of skills on top of what you're already building in their behavior mod that will serve them so well, observation skills, being able to have something outside of behavior mod that the dog can be so successful, but also allowing them to really kind of live in that space of, we didn't find the hide and that's okay, where that can also bleed over to, you know what?

(00:53:27):
We may have had an explosion today and that's okay. We didn't have a ... Okay. Exactly. We made it through the day and that's all right. So brilliant. I absolutely love it.

Melissa McCue-McGrath (00:53:37):
Yay. I'm glad.

Dianna L. Santos (00:53:40):
But I wanted to wrap up the podcast. You have a book that is coming out. I do. Can you please tell us a little bit about that book, please?

Melissa McCue-McGrath (00:53:48):
Sure. The book is called The Misadventures of the World's Okayest Dog Trainer, and it was inspired by ... So one of my gigs is I am a faculty advisor for the Victoria Stillwell Dog Training Academy. And in 2015, I was not yet that. I get a phone call from the Victoria Stillwell people going, "Hey, we have a student who needs somebody to mentor her, and we don't have any VSAs up there to be able to take her through, so would you be able to take her on? We looked up your credentials. You seem like you're one of us. Would it be okay? You're close enough to what we're doing that this woman could get her certificate of completion." And I'm like, "Sure, why not? " And so this young woman named Zoe ended up shadowing me for, I think, six or seven months. And she got to go to the Victoria Stowell place a couple of times during this.

(00:54:56):
She came back from one of these intensives with a notebook that was probably about eight inches thick of, here's how we train this, here's what we're looking for here, here's a behavior protocol for the ... I went looking through it going, "This didn't exist when I became a dog trainer." I was like, "This is amazing." And so when she was studying and she was like, "Okay, I'm taking my big test tomorrow. What do I need to know? " And I'm like, "Well, there's that section on learning theory, make sure you brush up on it. " She's like, "Pause. What did they forget to tell me in this? " And that's basically what this book is, that while it might be an industry, at least positive reinforcement focused, reward-based training tends to be predominantly female, not entirely, but predominantly, and yet there's still an immense amount of sexism in this industry and misogyny.

(00:55:54):
And then if you are a contractor and you are pregnant or you are sick, what does that look like as somebody trying to put food on the table for your family? What are conferences? How do you find a reputable organization to train through? So this is all of that. Plus it's all personal story-based. So it's the time I had to explain humping to a room full of second graders, but also behavioral euthanasia and walking into a hoarding house. So it's all of the things that they don't tell you about working in this industry that I kind of wish somebody told me when I started in the early 2000s because that just didn't exist.

(00:56:41):
So that comes out in about a week or two, April 15th. And the illustration on the cover is by Lily Chin, who's a really great ... She's found a niche animating and drawing things for dog trainers and behaviorists to use in our work. And I tell her every time I can, "Hey, Lili, your art has saved thousands of dogs that I have touched and it makes it so relatable." So she drew the cover for me, which was just amazing. And I'm so glad she did it and I couldn't believe she said yes, but the dog on the cover is peeing into a cup that says World's best dog trainer and the dog that she picked is my dog captain. So it just had that extra layer of he, that was fun. So yeah, so that's the book. There's a whole chapter on these dogs called The Main Six, and I'm going around the New England States and online talking about what these six dogs did and what implications that has for Scent Work and conservation work going forward.

(00:57:54):
So yeah.

Dianna L. Santos (00:57:55):
That's awesome. Well, huge congratulations on the book. It absolutely sounds fantastic. Definitely a resource that is needed. My goodness, yes, learning theory is great. Learning how to train is nice. Let's actually talk about some realities of doing this.

Melissa McCue-McGrath (00:58:10):
Yes. Yes. There are many.

Dianna L. Santos (00:58:15):
Yes, absolutely. Well, I want to say thank you so very much for reaching out. This was an absolutely spectacular conversation. I didn't want it to end, but as you can hear on my Tiny Terrier, he does. He's like, "I heard you said antler woman."

Melissa McCue-McGrath (00:58:32):
I need my fix.

Dianna L. Santos (00:58:36):
So again, thank you so very much for everything that you do. And I hope that you really do give yourself some time to pat yourself on the back because I understand how much the allure is to just keep giving and giving and giving to our clients, but just take the time to appreciate the gift that you have given to all of the dogs and their handlers throughout the entirety of your career, but particularly in allowing these dogs to really appreciate the power of using their nose and the connection they're having with their handlers, you allowed for that. So that's incredible. Thank you for everything that you do.

Melissa McCue-McGrath (00:59:10):
Thank you for everything you do and by bringing these stories to people to hear and to be able to hopefully connect and learn a little something along the way.

Dianna L. Santos (00:59:20):
So I want to give a huge thank you to Melissa for sitting down with me for this conversation in this episode. I love her enthusiasm as far as it goes to training dogs and working with their people. Again, being able to use scent work in a way to help dogs with behavioral challenges is absolutely fantastic. I love the fact that she stepped up and said, "Yes, I want to participate in this study." This is the kind of thing that just makes my heart sing. I love all of it. And you can tell her enthusiasm and the amount of care that she has for her clients, both the canine and the human is just palpable. So I, again, am so Incredibly thankful for Melissa for joining me on this conversation. It was a really good one. And I also encourage everyone to check out her book.

(01:00:08):
I think it's going to be a really good one, so we'll make certain that there are links for how you be able to find those where we're posting the podcast episode, as well as on the social media and our website. But if there are other topics that you guys are interested in, always feel free to reach out. If there's someone within the community like, "I really wish you would talk to this person," let me know. I want to talk to them.

(01:00:29):
And also definitely make certain that we're checking out everything that we offer through Scet Work University. There are so many things. We have such a huge library and our instructors are just knocking it out of the park. They are packing our calendar with events, so definitely encourage you guys to check all of that stuff out. We'll have links for how you can find everything where we post this podcast episode. But most importantly, definitely make certain that you take some time to go play the stiffy game with your dog. And when you're playing that game, no matter how you're doing it, just breathe and smile and be like, "Oh, this is amazing that I get to share in this experience with this amazing creature who is able to highlight what odor does because it is just a magical thing." So make sure you take some time to really just revel in how incredible this activity is.

(01:01:18):
But please give a cookie to your puppy for me, happy training, and we look forward to seeing you all soon.