The question was in reference to training a dog to hunt and "point" mantis. As it was a beginning of a thought of a possible course of action, I did not reference why I was asking after finding nada on forum search. Would have shocked me if I did find something on this.
My service dog, Sabaca, is a standard poodle. She was 13 the day after Christmas. Her expected life span is 12-14 years. She is starting to get a bit bored and loves learning new things. When she showed a mild curiosity in my new mantis and learned to watch when I feed them, the thought was planted. If I ask her where the mantis are she goes to the habitat area and shows me. If one is out she goes there first. Where are the others, she goes to habitats. The thought: can she be trained to hunt wild mantis when we take our long walks?
So I see 2 problems to continuing the training. Poodles do not have the greatest nose not like a bloodhound. So will she just hunt ghosts as trained by smell or will she go for any mantis smell? That was the basis for my original question: not human ability to detect mantis smell, but is there enough smell for dog to detect? If there is enough for dog to smell, is ghost scent different from wild mantis scent? Silly to train if last statement is valid.
The second problem is how to teach her to climb trees. But then we can always just look low for them.
Thanks for the replies , even the pm's. Just not quite the area I was asking about, My bad so I will try to be clearer in the future. Was doing research on best method of training if it was possible.
Recently saw a video of bumblebees taught to roll a ball into a circle to get a reward, LOL my dog is at least that smart.
