Teaching Nose Work To Tire Your Dog Out.
Looking for something new to try with your dog? How about put there nose to work?
Dogs have a very good sense of smell—100,000 times stronger than humans! That’s why dogs are often used to find lost people and animals, money, fruit at international airports, drugs, avalanche and disaster victims, and even to detect cancer and oncoming seizures. Tracking is a sport that demonstrates a dog’s natural ability to recognize and follow a scent, and is the foundation of canine search and rescue work. In tracking the dog is completely in charge, because only he knows how to use his nose to find and follow the track. For many, the greatest pleasure of tracking are the hours spent outside, training and interacting with their dogs.
Your first step is to find out what your dog really, really loves. Not likes, LOVES! That is what you will start with as the target for your dog’s search. Our goal in the beginning is not to teach the end result first, but to help the dog build their desire to hunt and scent independently.
As simple as this may sound, many dogs are reluctant to wonder on their own. It can take a bit of convincing that they are free to search. Some dogs are gung-ho and the biggest challenge will be reeling them in and getting them to focus on the task.
IN some cases the goal for the owners / handlers is for them to learn how to read their dogs and to pick up on the subtle signals that their dogs communicate with when they are on the trail of their target. Working with a training partner is helpful in some cases, but not mandatory. If you are using food have the food in a pouch or ventilated small container and keep a few extras on your person.
Often you can start out by throwing a treat on the floor in front of the dog so he can see it. Naturally he will want to chase what you just threw and if he knows it is a treat he will want it. So while he is moving to the treat on the floor give him a command that marks the behavior (find it, get it, search) any word that he will eventually associate with the task of finding the treat. Once you do this a few times he’ll start to the the idea that he is supposed to get the treat you’ve thrown on the floor right in front of his face. Next (like all training) make it a little more challenging, a farther distance or a smaller treat. Again, you are enforcing the idea that you want him to get what he is looking for. Once you think he gets the concept, take it to another level and throw the treat JUST out of his site. Around the corner of a wall or just under a piece of furniture. Just enough so he knows it is there but he starts to use his nose to find it rather then his eyes. Of course every time he finds it you always give him a lot of praise and he gets the treat. This is for PET TRAINING! for competition sport or serious training you would not want him to eat what he finds. Our goal is to get his brain working, and to understand you want him to find something. You can do this with a toy….
The next challenge is to place the article (treat or toy) out of his reach, so he can smell it but not get to it. At this point you can teach him to sit or down and once he does you make the behavior and offer lots of praise. Practice that and your dog will let you know he found his target by taking the action you want him to.
If you are in the California area, you can get great training at:
Gold Country K9 Services
6355 State Hwy 104
Ione, CA 95640
209.223.9663
