Have you ever had fun with your dog by hiding their treats or perhaps asking them to choose which of your hands has a treat in it? While this is a fun way to exercise your dogs mental ability and to work their nose, your dog's nose is capable of alerting you to so much more! Dogs can use their sense of smell to find everything from lost people to cancer to contraband. This class was developed for anyone that wants to have some fun with their dog by teaching them to use their sniffer. More specifically, in this class we'll harness your dogs powerful sense of smell to find a specific scent, birch, so that by the end of the class they'll be able to search an area and alert you to every tiny bit of birch scent present.

This class will begin by showing the dog what the scent smells like, using treats to help them associate the smell as desirable, teaching them to search different containers to find the smell, teaching them to let you know when they've found the smell, and then end with the goal of them being able to search a whole area and let you know where the scent is.

If you want to start the fun before the class begins you can get your dog into searching mode by playing some food games with them by hiding their food. Perhaps sprinkle it around the room, hide it under a mat, or play the shell game with some buckets. For safety reasons, food games should only be played with one dog in the room at a time.

This class was developed based on methods by Dr. Robert Hewings who spent 25 years training dogs for the Metropolitan Police and is now the Head of learning and development for the UK College of Scent Detection. He also recently published "Scent Training for Every Dog" which discusses the basics of doing scent work with your dog.

Please watch the video below to see your instructor's Guinea Pig find birch. His indication is a nose bop.