Corncobs, Scent detection and "Find it" skills!

You might wonder what on earth corncobs have to do with Lusi and her tracking skills. Well, apparently Lusi has just demonstrated how she can use scent detection to find a corncob that has just been handled by my husband as he picks it up off the field and throws it for her to fetch!


On the first occasion John picked up a corncob, wearing microfibre gloves, and threw it for Lusi to find. She ran to the general area, sniffing through the random corncobs trying to locate the one just thrown but was not sure which of the cobs to bring back and returned without one.


The next throw, John took his gloves off and threw the cob. Lusi saw where it landed, ran out, and located the cob almost immediately and returned with it.

Scent detecting in the cornfield.

On the third throw, John threw it again without gloves on; Lusi did not see where it landed but heard it drop and immediately turned her head to the direction of the noise and ran out towards where it had dropped. She ran passed, did a half circle back and when in line with John did a second smaller locating half circle where upon she located it and returned with it.

The "with" and "without" glove test was repeated once again with almost identical results! Clearly Lusi was relying on scent detection to find which corncob to retrieve.