What is Scentwork?
Scentwork (also known as scent detection, nose work or scent training) is an activity that utilises your dog’s sense of smell to search and detect a specific odour.
Scent detection training has for a long time been widely used across the world, for working and operational services.
Dogs have been trained and used to search for a variety of specific odours including but not limited to: bombs, firearms, drugs, cash, contraband, missing people & human remains. In recent years our amazing dogs are being used for assistance purposes including medical alert (diabetes & epilepsy) and medical detection, such as detecting cancer cells in humans!
Who can take part in scentwork?
This is one of the great things about Scentwork…any dog can do it!
- Puppies
- Adolescent dogs (teenage dogs)
- Elderly dogs
- Reactive dogs
- Nervous/anxious dogs
- Dogs on restricted exercise
- Rescue dogs
- Any breed of dog- this activity is designed for all breeds from your Chihuahuas to Great Danes, it’s not just for Spaniels, Labradors or German Shepherds like you normally see on most TV shows.
Benefits of scentwork
So now that you know what scentwork is and who can take part in this fun activity, I wanted to talk about the benefits of doing Scentwork with your dog whether that’s at home or signing up for Scentwork classes, 1-2-1’s, taster sessions or workshops.
The benefits:
- Low impact activity that any dog can do whether they are a puppy that is still growing, an elderly dog who can’t exercise as much as they used to or a dog that is on restricted exercise due to an injury or surgey.
- 10 minutes of sniffing (Scentwork) is more tiring than an hour of running!
- Scentwork is a highly stimulating, natural and rewarding behaviour for our dog’s as it taps into our dog’s primary sense.
- It provides mental stimulation for our dog by giving them a job to do so they don’t go self employed.
- Creates a happy dog, Scentwork has been proven to release happy endorphins that make our dog feel good.
- Reduces stress and anxiety by giving our nervous/anxious or reactive dog something to focus on.
- Increases the bond between the owner and their dog as they are doing Scentwork as a team, when our dog succeeds in finding the source of the scent it increases not only their optimism but also ours.
- It provides stronger focus and the ability to disengage from distractions.
- Relaxing and calming for our reactive, nervous or excitable dogs.
- A great tool to use to improve your dog’s desire of wanting to stay close to you and engage with you when outside.
fun facts!
Here’s some fun facts that you may not have known:
- Your dog has up to 300 million olfactory receptors compared to your 6 million. The part of their brain that is responsible for interpreting these is 40 times larger than ours.
- They can smell 100,000 times better than us. It is so sensitive that they could detect half a teaspoon of sugar in an Olympic-sized swimming pool.
- A dog’s nose can separate air into two: one portion goes to the olfactory sensing area which is responsible for distinguishing scents and the other goes to the respiratory system (breathing).
- Dogs have the ability to take in and breathe out air simultaneously. This is so that when they are sniffing, air can go in and out at the same time, creating a continuous flow of air. Unlike humans, we can only do one at a time.
- Dogs can smell the time. Yes that’s right, smell not tell! They can track the time from odours in the environment. For example as the sun makes its journey over your house it will heat up the room at particular times releasing scents. The movement of those odours is detectable to dogs. Genius!
Are you interested in starting your Scentwork journey?
If you are interested in starting your Scentwork journey then UK Sniffer Dogs has 12 free Scentwork exercises for you to try with your dog. Follow the link below to get started!
https://www.uksnifferdogs.com/12-free-exercises
