Improve your dog's life through scent work, using their nose and applying my knowledge of scentwork I deliver UK Sniffer Dog Bronze Program that will enable you to give your dog a positive scent experiences, not only teaching them to work and play with scent, but using scent to rectify problematic behaviours.
You can improve your dog’s life through scent work.
Part one Bronze Scent Detection Workshop starts at 19.15 on 8th June 2023 click here to book.
It is a four-week workshop, part two will be in July.
It is suitable for all dogs
If you have
- Puppies have loads of energy to burn. If they get the zoomies then scent work will help!
- Adolescent dogs whose behaviour may benefit from more focus and stillness.
- Over-aroused dogs struggle to calm and rest as they have endless energy to burn
- Working breeds of dogs in need of an activity to keep them busy. If your dog has been bred from a working line, then you need scent work!
- Elderly dogs who are not as mobile as they once were but who still have the drive to be active
- Dogs recovering from surgery or injuries
- Great for nervous dogs – using their noses is like a having safety blanket & is great confidence building
- Reactive dogs that are undergoing training – the scent is a great tool to help you redirect your dog’s focus
- Ex-sporting dogs that still need something but can’t continue with agility etc
- Blind and deaf dogs
- Dogs that can’t be let off the lead
- Overweight dogs who find exercise difficult but need to lose weight and burn energy.
It’s low-impact, stress-free and enjoyable.
With my support, you will teach your dog to utilise the full impact of their natural ability to smell. They will be able to detect a target scent hidden in different items and places, keeping it fun and fresh for years to come.
What are the benefits of training your dog in scent work?
- Naturally Calming
- Build A Relationship
- Enriching
- Relieves Boredom
- Burns Excess Energy
- Relieves Anxiety and Depression
- Lowers arousal levels
- Increases The Feel-Good Hormone Dopamine
- It gives your dog a low-impact, physical workout
- Improves mental health, reduces anxiety and depression
I am trained with Scent Work UK, and Scent For Six with SOCS and I am undertaking the bronze level with UK Sniffer dogs.
You don’t need any experience of training to join our bronze scent work class!
I will teach you how to communicate with your dog and identify and search for a particular target scent. Once they know what they are looking for, you teach them to locate the targetted scent and indicate to you exactly where it is. So after this, you will be able to understand your dog’s communication techniques.
UK Sniffer Dogs has put together 8 scent exercises for you to try at home to create mindful and mentally enriching experiences for your dog to try at home!
It’s completely free and you will receive video and written instructions.
Come back and book your course when you see how much your dog loves to scent!
You can download them here
Why is scent work so important to dogs?
Watch your dog. You will see that when they approach things, they don’t do it with their eyes, their nose goes toward it and they begin to sniff.
The dog is a creature of the nose (Alexander Horowitz – Inside of a dog)
Dogs have around 220,000 scent receptors that detect odours, we only have around 5 million. When they sniff the muscles in their nose engage, they can detect simultaneous smells through each nostril and breath at the same time.
They create small air turbines from their nostrils to attract more scent. The lining of the dog’s nose is massive compared to ours, this contains the receptors which take the scent on a journey around the dog’s brain.
The olfactory bulb is 40% larger compared to a human bulb.
The olfactory receptors send signals to significant parts of the brain including
The area that involves reward and motivation
The limbic system – emotional and instinctual behaviour
The frontal cortex for working memory and learning and action to stimuli
And the area for behavioural cognition.
A dog’s respiration rate increases through exercise
When at rest it is around 15 reps
When walking it doubles to around 30 reps
When running or doing physical activity it is around 90 reps
But when using their nose to sniff and search it is at around 140-200 reps!
So a small session of scent work will use up more energy than your usual walk will!!
Watch this video to see the magical world of your dogs nose.