Scentwork - What's That?

Scentwork is one of the most natural and rewarding activities for dogs. It taps into their incredible sense of smell while giving them a mental workout. We love scentwork so we want to tell you all about it!

Dog sniffing a tree

The Benefits of Scentwork

Scentwork provides an excellent outlet for mental stimulation. Just 10 minutes of focused sniffing can be enough to satisfy and tire out your dog! But it's also important to remember that because of this, we shouldn't push our dogs too far, and keep sessions short and fun. Dogs may become frustrated and unwilling to continue participating if we push them to work too hard. Remember, as with all training, we should aim for fun and success, rather than perfection.

Scentwork can be a great way of building confidence for young puppies or anxious dogs. Because sniffing is fun and calming, we can use this activity in behaviour modification for things such as noise sensitivites, being worried outdoors, or even to help dogs feel more confident and comfortable in the vicinity of other dogs. Yep, that's right, scentwork is absolutely amazing for reactive dogs too! This is one of the main reasons I LOVE scentwork - it doesn't discriminate, as long as your dog has a nose they can participate! Although we train with our dogs, scentwork does encourage independent problem solving too, which again can be great for confidence building and more.

Sometimes, training can very much feel like you telling your dog what to do, and them having to abide by this. We call it obedience, and we expect our dog to do everything we want them to. Absolutely we need a level of this to enjoy our lives together, however, with scentwork, its more of a partnership. You and your dog work together, train together, doing an activity you both enjoy. I often find owners telling me that since starting scentwork with their dog, other areas of training have improved significantly. I have had owners reporting a reduction in separation anxiety related behaviours, an increase in response to recall, and an overall general improvement in the relationship between owner and dog.

Once you've started with the basics, scentwork can be done anywhere. You can learn at home and in the garden, you can join a class, you can take it out into the park. During our scentwork course, we start inside the hall, then head into the carpark, then the surrounding areas and sometimes even further afield.

Some Geeky Scentwork Science Facts

A dog's sense of smell is estimated to be between 10 thousand and 100 thousand times more sensitive than ours. If we tried to sniff out a treat in a room, it would probably take us a very long time, but for dogs, it could be a few seconds. Dogs have around 220 million olfactory receptors, compared to our measly 5 million. The olfactory receptors detect scents and trigger a response in the brain. The part of the dog's brain that processes scent molecules is around 40 times bigger than ours. One of my favourite examples to put this information into perspective, is that we may be able to detect by smell a spoonful of sugar in a cup of tea. Whereas, a dog could detect a spoonful of sugar in a large swimming pool!

The anatomy of a dog's nose is to allow for advanced sniffing skills. When they breathe in, this air can be split so that some is used for respiratory and the rest used to analyse for scents. This allows the dogs to continuously take in new air and keep sniffing around without becoming short of breath or too tired. If we tried this, we'd become very lightheaded and probably be on the floor! Additionally, the wetness of a dog's nose can help scent molecules stick to their nose for them to evaluate.

And, even their ears have a part to play! Think about those Spaniel ears, the Basset Hound ears. They flop down and drag across the floor when they're sniffing - a nuisance for owners needing to constantly wash and brush Spaniel ears! But, these ears help to brush up scents from the ground and waft the air. This can help them lock onto scents and follow their direction.

Real World Application

Professionally, dogs are trained to use these skills to aid humans doing their jobs. We have amazing medical detection dogs that are being trained and used to detect cancer, predict seizures and fainting episodes. Doesn't this really highlight just how sensitive to smells our dogs really are?! And how valuable they can be for humans - yet there are still some humans out there mistreating these amazing animals...

Search and rescue dogs can prove invaluable when searching for injured people across the moors, dales or even during snowstorms. Additionally, they can track down criminals attempting to run away from the police.

Dogs in our police force can be trained to detect firearms, drugs, cash, explosives and more. I might be slightly obsessed with watching Send In the Dogs or Police Interceptors! :)

There are even wildlife conservation dogs, who are trained to find and track endangered species in the fight against poachers.

Whilst it is best for dogs to track freshly laid scents, they may be able to pick up on scents that are a day or two old. They can also track scents through water!

However, in our classes, the dogs are trained to find a certain scent across obstacles. We use Kong, gun oil, catnip in our classes currently. While we aren't training for a real job, we do apply very similar methods and principles.

Take a look on our website for our next Scent Detection course dates, or feel free to get in touch!

Emma

Elmtree Dogs

(BSc, MSc Animal Behaviour & Training, UK Sniffer Dogs Instructor)