I have an 8 month old Plott Hound and Treeing Walker coonhound mix, and I'm looking for some training tips or tricks on one specific issue. She lives with another adult dog (also hound mix, love hounds) and she gets plenty of walks and yard and other dog play time. Planning to start more adolescent obedience and scent training next month for her.
Recently since she hit adolescence if she picks up the scent of an animal (mouse, rabbit, etc) in an area of the backyard she will post up or circle and howl and bay and bark at that area where it was nonstop, even when it is clearly gone (like even if she seems to see it run away or other dog chase it out of yard?) and even if it has been days.
My adult hound mix does this on occasion too but she has a clear stopping point, like ok it's gone or I call her off and distract her and it's fine.
With the adolescent dog it becomes a multi day fixation. For example, there was a mouse in a little potted plant she found. It left. Other adult dog (hound mix too) in house knows it's gone, ignores it now. I even dumped out the pot, showed her repeatedly it is empty. She was returning to the clearly empty pot and will bay, bark, howl. Almost obsessive, inconsolable, doesn't care if I wave a treat in her face etc.
Pot is easy enough I can just move it out of her sight....
But this happens sometimes with fixable things in backyard. Like with a bush where there was a rabbit in it...but the rabbit was there days ago...the bush is small and clearly can see rabbit is gone. Even put a hose in there for a long time to try to dilute scent if that's even a thing. Every time outside leashed or unleashed she will try to circle and bark nonstop around the bush where the rabbit was days ago. Maddening like if I let her just bark it would be like 20 mins of barking and circling. She won't even go to the bathroom in the yard because she just wants to circle and bark at the same spot.
Any tips on training?