How Do I Begin Training My Dog In Scent Work In Leicestershire

Introduction

Beginners scent work training with your dog is simple; it involves searching for a particular scent, toy, item or food using their nose! You don't need specific scent work training kit. It is easy to set up scent work at home.

Scent work training is great for puppies, but they need more rest than older dogs, so short sessions work best, and it is a great activity to prevent zoomies and mouthing!

Suppose you want to teach your dog scent work for calming, teaching self-control, or reducing anxiety to improve reactive behaviour. Typing find a professional scent work course near me may help you find a professional instructor who will teach you scent targeting, scent discrimination building an indication, and setting up easy fun searches at home. You can search UK Sniffer Dogs to find an instructor.

UK Sniffer Dogs, Scent Work For Your Pet Dogs

UK Sniffer Dog instructors are all over the UK

UK Sniffer Dog Bronze Scent Detection class teaches your dog to target the scent of a red kong and communicate the find through a nose freeze indication. You will learn how your dog discriminates the target scent from all the other scents in the environment and how to set up fun and engaging searches that you can use at home and out on walks or when on holiday. As the class progresses the searches become harder. Pieces of red kong are cut smaller, making the searches harder for your dog.

At What Age Can Dogs Start Scent Training?

There is no minimum age to start Scent work. Dogs are born with one sense, their sense of smell. Scent work is perfect for older dogs because it is low impact.

What Is The Best Scent Training For Dogs?

Food searches, searching for toys, clothes, keys, people, absolutely anything (that is safe) is great!

Food searches are easy to set up. But some dogs can struggle with food. This is due to dopamine. Dopamine triggers motivation, and this can affect impulse control and increase arousal. Scent work should induce serotonin, stabilising their mood and beneficial for reactive dogs. If your dog's food search makes them run around looking for the food aimlessly, then training them another way would be a better option.

Teaching them to search for a target scent will help them with self-control and their impulses

What Are The Four Scents For Scent Work Training dogs?

There are different scents that you can use in scent work training. As long as it’s safe, you can use it. Gun oil, clove, red kong, cat nip and birch are popular choices. Ensure that the scent is not too strong, or toxic to animals. 

Understanding how to scent and store articles to maintain the scent and prevent cross-contamination is beneficial.

Do You Want To Become A Scent Handler?

Check out Rovers Return Dog Training for UK Sniffer Dog Bronze Scent Detector classes. 

Scent Work Classes For Dogs at Home

You can set up fun searches at home. Hide your target scent or food using items you have at home, without your dog seeing you set it up give them a search cue and let them go. You may need to do this on lead to slow them down if they are too excited, allow them to move in different directions, use their nose to find the item or food, alternatively invest in various different items from scent Dog they have some great ideas for inventive searches

Scent Work Games For Dogs 

1. One of the easiest games that you can play is scatter-feeding their food for them to find. 

2. Take all or some of their daily food, sprinkle it on a rug, grass, carpet or floor and allow them to search for it.

3. Use a muffin tin and tennis balls, hide food underneath the balls and allow your dog to find the food

4. To begin with, use three plastic cups or bowls and hide a piece of food underneath all of them. As your dog goes to the food item lift the cup, say yes, lift the cup and let them eat it. As an alternative let them work out which cup has the food underneath and how to get it out, but some pessimistic dogs may not do this, and some energetic dogs won’t think to do it. Once your dog has the hang of it, hide one piece underneath one of the cups

5. Hide some of the food in a towel and fold the ends up, hiding the food and encouraging your dog to find the food. Make it simple to start with and encourage them. Make it gradually harder as they begin to work out what to do and enjoy it.

6.  Take a few cardboard boxes. Place them around the room. Hide food or toys inside and encourage your dog to find the items. Place food in them all initially, then reduce the food so they search harder to find the prize.

7. Hide food in different parts of the room. Encourage your dog to find the food. 

8. Take a small box. Fill it with empty paper, bubble wrap, and the inside bits of the toilet roll. Sprinkle some of their food inside and let them forage for the food.

UK Sniffer Dogs have eight scent games to download from their website find them on my webpage.

Conclusion

You can turn your dog into a sniffer detective by regularly training them with regular training sessions.

Whether it is scent work for puppies or older dogs there is something fun for all. 

Be inventive, use items you have around the home and set up fun hides!

But don’t forget you can turn this into a non-competitive sport by attending a fun scent class and learning how to set target scent courses at home.