Scent Work is a fast growing sport which allows your dog to harness their innate sense of smell to detect odours.
Dogs possess up to 300 million olfactory receptors in their noses; for context, humans have about six million!
Scent Work takes a dog’s capability to locate odours and turns it into an exciting game. Once given the cue to search, your dog will start playing by looking for a specific odour.
We start teaching dogs how to search and indicate using a Kong for the scent, learning the fundamentals and a wide range of types of hides before moving onto gun oil, cloves and catnip.
Although it is solely the dog’s job to locate the odour, Scent Work is a team sport. As a handler, your role is important too. You’ll be the one who helps to build a reliable indication and reward when your dog has found the odor.
Why do scent work?
- Scentwork is often described as mindfulness for dogs and is a amazing for engaging and tiring out dogs
- Dogs of all ages and sizes from 4 month old puppies to golden oldies can all take part
- Scent training is a brilliant way of building confidence in dogs who are nervous or reactive
- It's always different! As a trainer, I love finding new ways to hide the target scent and it never stays the same
- It is a fantastic way of developing a strong bond between you and your dog
- We can sometimes get frustrated with our dogs that constantly want to sniff - this is a productive way of channeling that innate desire
