Sniffs and Giggles

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Did you know that training scentwork can have multiple benefits for your dog? 👃

Scent is such a HUGE part of your dog's life, with their 300 million olfactory receptors to our mere 6 million, and the part of their brain dedicated to scent being 40 times larger than our own. So it isn't surprising that scentwork can have a impact on our dogs behaviour.

It has previously been stated scentwork is calming for dogs, and helps create a positive bias (boosting confidence), but this latest study done at Aberystwyth University has shown it can also increase inhibitory control (self-control) and persistance in repeating rewarded behaviour!

So how can you put a little extra scentwork into your dogs life? Here are a few ideas...

🔸 Let your dog sniff whilst out on walks! This is your dog's equivalent to reading the newspaper, or even going on social media, and the only way they can find out what is going on in the outside world. Although sniffing every two steps may be a bit excessive, do make sure you aren't dragging them along past their favourite sniffing spots and maybe even point out some sniffing spots you think could be particularly good.

🔸 Use a snuffle mat or scatter feed their food! Sniffing is an inherently calming activity for most dogs AND dogs are natural foragers, so sniffing-out their food amongst long grass, or in a snuffle mat, is a great outlet for this behaviour that can even help calm more excitable dogs. You can also add a cue to this behaviour, like with any, so that they are only looking for food on the ground when you say it will be there.

🔸 Play 'Find it' games! You can hide treats, toys and even people for your dog to sniff out, which could come in handy later down-the-line when your keys go missing!

🔸 Create a 'scent-box'! If you go out somewhere, either with or without your dog, try and pick-up different objects from your time out. You can then offer up these objects to your dog later to sniff, so they can either re-live their adventure, or learn about your day.

Let us know what fun ways you incorporate scent into your dog's life!

You can check out the study mentioned in the graphic for yourself here: https://www.mdpi.com/2076-2615/14/3/428

12/05/2024

Did you know?

A dog’s sense of smell is 40 times greater than our own and they are trained to sniff out even the faintest scent.


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workingdogmagazine.com

11/24/2024

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10/23/2024

Building more reliable scent detection behaviors in dogs, one step at a time.

10/11/2024

Searching interior rooms can be complicated by several factors.
Being systematic, remembering the rules/hide placement
limitations, and other factors for the search will be a huge help.

Here's a way to train for them. Remember this is "A" way.

10/11/2024

What is odor obedience? Is it really..."A" thing?

I hear this term thrown around a ton. As we are apt to do these days when you here a term you start to do some research. No scholarly articles that I could find use the term (again from a quick search). However, there are tons of trainers that use the term. Big names that I trust and respect use the term.

So what do we mean by obedience to odor? Is it stickiness? Stickiness is most often defined by staying at source. Isn't this a Trained, or least drilled and repeatedly reinforced, Final Indication or Response...with a terminal criteria associated with time/duration?

If that's true then isn't obedience to odor really about teaching structure (behavior chain that ends when you find odor and receive reinforcement) then over time allowing freedom, within that structure? And then what "drives" or motivates dogs to find and then "stick" to the hide?

Same search engine, Googled Drives in Dog Training. Found a Gazillion and 1 articles talking about drive. 80-90% of them are actually speaking and talking about "Motivation" to work. Is it really Prey Drive that causes a dog to look for treats, or is it "MOTIVATION" to satiate one of Maslow's needs?

Drive, in psychology is, an urgent basic need pressing for satisfaction, usually rooted in some physiological tension, deficiency, or imbalance (e.g., hunger and thirst) and impelling the organism to action. The three most common drives are; Prey, Pack, Defense. There is discussion about hunt, play, and other drives but most often people associate these as sub drives under others.

Watching little dogs work are they in "drive" when they're looking for odor, or are they motivated to work for their owner because of rapport? Is it that they know, through teaching/training/proofing that, if after given their search command, when they find odor they will receive reinforcement? Is it different for big dogs?

Or is it that the ANTICIPATION of reinforcement is motivating and that through providing a structured frame work, associated with the performance conditions and standards, they understand they have the freedom of choice to find or not find the hide, and receiving reinforcement is contingent on their finding the source or absolute threshold of odor? And that meeting this need is motivating?

SO again is it "obedience to odor," is the dog in "drive" to find the odor, or is this all just finding a way to motivate the dog to perform the task we want...finding the thing?

I bring no real answers to this one...just some thoughts. Yeah this one might be click baity. But riddle me this...don't words and terms matter?