We take our hounds to Home Depot and Coastl Farm & Ranch for socialization training. My other, better half is way into scent training. One hound is 1 leg away from Elite, the new little guy is just starting on Level 1.
Yes indeed Socialization is most important especially when working with formidable dogs. Back "in the Day" the scent work I did was area searching for the bad guy - both air and ground scent. Casey was the first time I played with Article Detection Scent Work and it was lots of fun. Only used dog treats - hot dogs, jerky, milk bones, and such. Both at home and out in the places I took him in our travels, he would search - got pretty good at it - actually real good.
In the early days I considered a working dog more or less as a tool. It's much more than that, you gain access to their faculties - sight, hearing, scent, aggression - it's actually really awesome. Directed searching is very powerful where handler can direct where the dog searches as is directed aggression.
