Looking to get into a new activity with your pup? Consider nose work for your dog. Nose work is described on the official K9 Nose Work website as: “the fun search and scenting activity for virtually all dogs and people. This easy to learn activity and sport builds confidence and focus in many dogs, and provides a safe way to keep dogs fit and healthy through mental and physical exercise.”
Put simply, nose work harnesses a dog’s natural instinct to hunt, puts it into training and gives it a specific purpose: to detect a scent and find the source. Agility nose work classes, like K9 Nose Work, are inspired by working detection dogs who use the activity to detect all manner of things including explosives, currency and illegal food and drugs.
Nose work classes are offered all over the country, so it is very easy to find a location near you. There are classes that take nose work very seriously and will and work you and your dog towards winning titles and awards, and there are others that focus simply on the confidence building, dog-human bonding and the general enrichment that the activity can provide.
What Happens In a Nose Work Class?
Whatever type of nose work class you try, here’s what you can expect to happen during a nose work class:
- The room will be set up with a course filled with boxes.
- Each dog will be in a crate while they aren’t working in order to ensure that any dog, no matter what their temperament, can participate.
- During your turn on the course, your dog will be on leash and there will be a treat hidden in one of the boxes.
- The goal is for your dog to sniff around and find the treat. Once they find it, the course will be rearranged and another treat will be hidden.
- Once your dog is confident with the boxes and finding treats easily, everyday objects are added to the course to make it more difficult to find.
- The goal is to work up to finding a scent (usually birch) in the course and then to finding a scent in open course settings, such as in a car or the outdoors.
Scents are used because, though this is not professional detection work, this sport mimics the work that those dogs do. Their job is to find contraband, people, etc. by searching out scents in different environments such as an array of luggage or in the aftermath of a natural disaster.
The Importance of Nose Work for Dogs
Nose work is probably one of the best activities you can do with your dog. It allows your dog to use their most highly developed sense, lets them do something that comes naturally to them and tires them out both mentally and physically. Any time you can get your dog using their nose, the more they use their brain and the more tired they will be at the end of the session.
The beauty of this sport is that any dog can do it, and it is especially effective in the winter months because you can set it up anywhere, even the smallest of apartments. All you need are a few boxes and some food.