You don’t need to have a military or police K-9 to teach your dog to recognize a scent. You can go for scent work training even at your home.
AKC Scent Work
AKC Scent Work is a sport that copies the job of working detection dogs to find a scent and share to the handler that the scent has been found. Scent work is a happy and challenging activity that offers dogs the opportunity to use their sense of odor in a ways which is engaging, fun and develop a foundation of trust dog and handler.
Things you need for scent work training
The first thing about teaching your dog scent work is searching the right supplies. You can search it from a store near your house or buy online
- Essential oil
- Tweezers
- Cotton swab
- Small glass jar with a lid
- Disposal gloves
- Treats
- Scent vessel
- Plastic container with a lid
Prepare the odor and scent vessel
- In a distant room from where you’re working with your canine friend, wear your globes and put two drops of essential oil to every cotton swab. Place the scented cotton swabs in a jar.
- Remove your gloves and roll them in a newspaper and dispose them in a trash.
- Use tweezers to place them out of the jar in the scent vessel.
- Put your tweezers in a plastic bag and seal.
Once the training session is over, reuse the cotton swab if your dog isn’t drooling.
Introduce your dog to recognizing the scent
- Keep the tin in one hand and treat in the next, keeping them one foot apart.
- Reward your dog when it stops smelling or licking your hand with the treat and investigates the hand with the tin and reward him by bringing the food to the hand. Remember to feed the dog at the odor source. If the dog consistently smells the tin, you can feed at the tin.
- Following few reps, place the tin to the other hand
- Now, if your dog correctly identifies the scent in both hands, you can move ahead
Teaching your dog to search for the scent
- Place the tin with the scented cotton swab in the plastic container
- Follow the same procedure by holding the container in your hand and waiting for your dog to find the scent. Once he does, ensure to feed your dog like you did before.
- Now place the box on the ground, behind your leg and follow the same process.
- Find put the box in another room and bring him inside the room to search for it.
Tips for scent work training
- Always wear gloves when setting up and use tweezers to handle the cotton swab.
- Keep the odor novel and never contaminate the atmosphere with it. Remove everything that came into contact with the door in the garbage.
- Select a location far away from the training area to hide the jar.
The AKC scent work training is simple and helps your dog recognize a smell once they have picked the scent.
