{"podcast":{"title":"Alert! Scent Work","slug":"alert-scent-work-7421909","podcast_index_feed_id":7421909,"rss_url":"https://feeds.captivate.fm/alert-scent-work/","website_url":"https://www.alertscentwork.com","image_url":"https://artwork.captivate.fm/62de190b-1822-41ed-a3d2-c1c9e35f9f02/IIIgDeQvT2zt8bjwAH51D97V.jpg","author":"Alert! Scent Work","episode_count":26,"summary":"Alert! Scent Work is a podcast for everyone who's fallen down the scent work rabbit hole — and loves it there. Scot sits down with judges, competitors, and community builders from AKC, NACSW, ASCA, UKC, and beyond for the conversations you've always wanted to have but never had time for on trial day. We talk nose work and scent work training philosophy, competition mindset, and the perspectives that shape how we think about this dog sport. We celebrate the wins, laugh at the disasters, and dig into origin stories — because how did any of us end up here, completely obsessed with watching our dogs use their noses? Whether you're trialing every weekend or just discovering K9 nose work and scent work for the first time, this show is about the whole scent work life — the sport, the dogs, and the community that makes it all worth it.","last_synced_at":"2026-07-07T00:22:25.148447+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/alert-scent-work-7421909"},"episode":{"title":"Melissa Sowa | Take Your Time","slug":"melissa-sowa-take-your-time","published_at":"2026-06-22T12:00:00+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/alert-scent-work-7421909/melissa-sowa-take-your-time","show_page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/alert-scent-work-7421909","url":"https://www.alertscentwork.com","audio_url":"https://episodes.captivate.fm/episode/e728ce92-06da-47f7-b4b4-809eb90d0118.mp3","summary":"Melissa Sowa has been judging since buried hides had to be placed using a drill. She's competed through Summit in NACSW and detective in AKC, and judges for AKC, C-WAGS, and USCSS. When she talks about what works and what doesn't in this sport, she has seen it from just about every angle there is. And a lot of what she comes back to is the same idea. Take your time. At the start line. Covering your search area. Moving up the levels. Paying your dog. It shows up everywhere in this conversation and in everything she sees as a judge. We also spend a lot of time on the handler side of things, because in scent work we talk a lot about training the dog but there is just as much to work on as the human half of the team. What we talk about: Detective search coverage, what covering an area really means, and what Melissa does before she calls finish One hide syndrome, why it's real, what causes it, and what to do about it How competing at Summit changed how detective search areas feel to her Memory as a skill, she said she has a horrible memory and walked us through exactly how she trained herself out of it How you start the search is how it's going to go What organizational psychology taught her about rewarding her dog The pay discrepancy between training and trialing and what to do about it Don't rush the levels, why staying and getting more practice can make a real difference Why you might pay for a lack of nos at the lower levels What she sees handlers do that costs them Qs, things that have nothing to do with the dog Influencing your dog, her thoughts, and how she idiot proofs her own dogs in training USCSS and the stupid handler trick, yes this is a real competition element Two judge stories, one involving a metal detector, one involving a monsoon Seven questions with Meli…","meta_description":"Melissa Sowa has been judging since buried hides had to be placed using a drill. She's competed through Summit in NACSW and detective in AKC, and judges f…","key_points":[],"chapters":[],"topics":[],"duration_seconds":3299,"processing_state":"not_requested","actions":[{"name":"request_transcript","method":"POST","url":"https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/alert-scent-work-7421909/episodes/melissa-sowa-take-your-time/transcription-requests","description":"Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode."},{"name":"read_markdown","method":"GET","url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/alert-scent-work-7421909/melissa-sowa-take-your-time.md","description":"Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource."}]}}