Hide Difficulty Progression Reference

Novice (2–3): the basic search pattern on a controlled, low-airflow hide — the right level for a brand-new skill or a newly introduced target odor.

Intermediate (4–6): one added complexity at a time — a container, a little distraction, or a first elevated hide — while everything else stays familiar.

Advanced (7–8): generalizing across two or more compounding factors at once, like an elevated hide inside a vehicle, asking the dog to combine skills built separately at earlier levels.

Elite (9–10): full real-world conditions — meaningful distraction and a non-obvious, hard-to-reach placement — closer to a trial or a genuine working search than a training rep.

The hide count and search-time columns come from feeding each level into the Scent-Work Training Planner’s own buildScentWorkPlan()as a flat, single-session plan — starting and ending at that exact level, so the interpolated difficulty pins to the level shown with no ramp involved. The full session column spreads that same search time evenly across the suggested hides as each rep’s work duration, then runs it through buildSessionTimeline() with a 60-second warm-up, a 15-second rest between hides, and a 30-second cool-down added on top — the same timeline structure the Training Session Timer Planner builds.

The benchmark score runs a hypothetical clean run — every hide found, zero faults, zero misses, finished at 85% of the suggested search time — through scoreNoseWorkRun(), the exact function behind the Nose Work Scoring Calculator. And the example hide for each level is the first environment, distraction, and height combination that actually scores that level when run through rateHideDifficulty() — there are usually several combinations that land on the same score; this shows one real, valid one.

None of these five figures were typed in by hand as a table — they’re computed fresh from the same tool functions every time this page renders, which is also what the accompanying test suite checks directly.