Humans are visual animals. We rely on our eyes to gather information about the world around us. Our language of understanding relates to our vision (“I see what you mean.” “Look here, my point is that…” “I have a slightly different view of the matter.”). Large areas of our brain are devoted to processing visual information, and appearances effect everything from our personal relationships to the way we do business.
As important as vision is to us, so too is scent the primary focus for our dogs. Dogs have 220 million + scent receptors, compared to our measly 5 million. Large areas of your dog’s brain are devoted to olfaction, just as ours are devoted to vision. Our dogs have a very different way of relating to their world, one which we can only guess at. If they were to talk to us, they would likely replace our visual references with olfactory ones (“I smell what you mean.” “Sniff here, my point is that…” “I have a slightly different scent of the matter.”).
This past weekend, Paws Abilities Dog Training hosted Jill Marie O’Brien and Kimberly Buchanan for an Introduction to K9 Nose Work seminar. Watching the dogs learn about this fun and fascinating sport was a real treat. Dogs love using their noses, and they’re extraordinarily good at doing so. Whether they were searching for a toy or treat, the dogs all exhibited incredible talent and problem solving abilities.
Dogs can sniff out drugs, explosives, and cadavers. They can alert their people to the presence of bedbugs, wood rot, or cancer. They can predict the onset of a seizure. They can find the one stick you touched amongst a giant pile of sticks or the pheasant you shot from across a field. They can track criminals, lost children, or foxes.
Using their noses is as fulfilling and enjoyable to dogs as using our eyes is to us. The joy you experience from looking at a meadow full of wildflowers or a gorgeous sunset over the lake is likewise experienced by your dog when he comes across a pile of raccoon scat or a squirrel carcass. One has only to watch the blissful expression on a dog’s face as he closes his eyes and lifts his head to sniff the wind to know how very important the sense of smell is to him.
Scent travels much like fog or mist. It falls from the source, rolling along the ground and dissipating the further away it goes. It is affected by temperature, air currents, and other objects. It bounces off surfaces and pools in low-lying areas. It may be vacuumed up along a wall or be pushed about by the wagging of a tail or the scuffing of your feet on the grass. Our dogs allow us to access the otherwise unreachable world of scent. Watching a dog work a scent back to the source tells us how the scent molecules are moving and gives us a peek into this incredible, alien world of olfaction.
There are many different scenting options available to dogs and their owners. From letting your dog explore new smells on a walk in a quiet field to teaching him to find your car keys to competing in tracking or K9 Nose Work or even training scent articles in competition obedience, we can offer our dogs many chances to use their natural abilities. Scent work can calm and focus hyper dogs or increase a timid dog’s confidence. It can give older or handicapped dogs a fulfilling job to do and reactive or aggressive dogs a safe chance to play.
Later this week we’ll explore the sport K9 Nose Work in more depth. In the meantime, what nose games do you play with your dog?