As humans we have a tendency to think that we know best.
But when it comes to working with a dog we don't know best!
They have powers way beyond ours! When there’s snow on the ground you can see all these footprints. They are something that we don't normally see, but your dog is aware of them all the time - snow or no snow.
When he's sniffing and wants to pull over to somewhere and you say “There's nothing there - come on, let's go,” he's right and you're wrong!
You can see here that there’s been a late-night bunny party, heaven for your dog to check out. But normally we have no idea of all this activity. Your dog, though, can “see” this every single day.
Scent in the dog’s brain
Did you know that a third of the dog’s brain is taken up with processing scent? 😳
And look at the size of their hooter compared with ours! (That’s a normal-shaped dog’s nose - not one squashed and altered by designer breeding.)
That nose is meant to work! And in many cases it’s put to work for our benefit.
There are dogs for medical alert and seizure detection, drug dogs, customs dogs, police tracking dogs, hunting dogs, cancer detection dogs, search and rescue dogs, quartering dogs, flushing dogs.
So many useful applications of that wonderful scenting ability!
But there’s also the fun stuff. Scent discrimination in Obedience competitions is highly sophisticated, but taught - or should I say refined - for fun.
And Working Trials is a terrific way for the layperson to enjoy high-performance tracking. In the higher levels of Trials, you and your dog are confronted by upwards of 30 acres of empty space with just a pole to indicate the start of the track. The track will be three hours old, and have three tiny articles (think key, matchbox, metal bolt) somewhere along its half-mile length. In all weathers!
And with dedication and application - and a lot of hard work! - a dog from the humblest beginnings can excel. My little Battersea foundling Poppy became WTChampion Flower of Battersea CDEx UDEx WDEx TDEx.
That’s a very high level of expertise to be exhibited by both dog and handler. It’s genuine teamwork, where the dog is the expert.
Nosework in the home
It’s not necessary to walk the legs off your dog (and you) every day with a view to tiring them out. Using their brains is much more tiring!
Hunting for your lost keys, socks, or wallet is a great way to partner up with your family dog to make life easier for you, and definitely more fun for her!
Just playing hide and seek in the house is a great start.
Here you can see Lacy searching a car for hidden “contraband”. In this case it was a toy rat. You can scent this with a tiny drop of innocuous essential oil, or just with your hands. Even in this still photo, you can see her tail was swishing with excitement as she got into her task.
This post is designed to get you thinking about what your dog can do better than you can - and how you can enhance both your lives by working with your dog, and not against her.
There's so much we can actually learn from our dog if we're prepared to open our minds and look . . . and it's not only about dogs.
If you take off your blinkers (what are they called in America? Blinders!) you'll begin to see an awful lot in the world that you didn't know was there.
So start now by incorporating some scent games into your lives!