No trailing this weekend thanks to storm Darragh 🌀🤦♀️ This video clip was taken of Smudge thursday just gone. We love a video clip as it allows others to watch and learn. Often when you have a dog attached yourselves, your trying to multi-task and can often miss subtle trailing behaviours. Not having a dog attached allows us to sit back & notice things we might of not picked up on previously.
Smudge is a very nose down type of dog when he trails, in this clip you can often hear the air being expelled through his nostrils. This allows him to get rid of any scent he doesnt want and to take fresh scent in. You can see when he gets to the big open junction he is given some more line to cast around and check all his options before commiting to a direction of intrest. You can see he checks out the vegetation on the junction also, where it was a particuarly windy day scent will get blown and sit on the vegetation. After casting he commits to his choice of intrest, can you notice the confident pull in the line as he commits?
After deciding which way to go at the junction Smudge shows a lovely flowing negative as he trails. A flowing negative is where the dog weaves left to right across the scent trail, often looks like they are zig-zagging. The dog is working over the scent in one direction as the scent gets weaker the dog works over the strongest point to the opposite side, as it gets weaker again they weave back again.
Can you spot this?
It's very hard for a dog to follow a trail on hard surface footprint to footprint, it takes a lot of brain power & nose work. The vast majority of dogs would revert to the blown scent on the vegetation and prefer to follow that instead of working over the hard surface.
Anyone that knows us knows we love anything nosework related. We done some hunting games today with Smudge & Moose using their favourite hairy rabbit balls focusing on using their nose to go 'find' them. Having to go actively search for the rabbit balls keeps their mind busy and is a great form of mental stimulation. We changed it up and on some gos made the hairy rabbit balls completely unknown by throwing them into position so their wasnt a track of human scent to follow, having mantrailing dogs they can be too clever and just follow where we have walked out to place them. So having no scent trail out makes them have to really work for it 👌
Giving your dog an sniffing outlet is so rewarding for your dog. Not only does it work their brain it will release dopamine and endorphins which make dogs feel good and allow them to de-stress. Sniffing is great for your dogs over all mental well-being and will help you have a much more relaxed dog. Compared to walking your dog hours upon hours which in turn will only make your dog fitter and turn them into an athlete. Getting them using their nose is as simple as doing find it games around the house, scatter feeding, doing hunting games or taking them on a sniffari.
Dog sports we offer that are great for your dogs using their nose include mantrailing, scent detection and tracking. If you have a dog that loves sniffing why not give one of these dog sports a go? Or if your looking for your dog to have an outlet to meet both their physical & mental needs then look no further. Give us a message for more information 😊
