It is no secret to many who have visited this blog that, when it comes to dogs, the Border Collie has completely stolen my heart. My history with them goes back to childhood – my very first dog as a kid was a Border Collie x Shetland Sheepdog, and he was absolutely the best dog (as they all are, but there was something about him that made him my perfect canine childhood companion) – and continued through into adulthood with working sheepdogs. I adore the breed, their intelligent brains and drive to work with their people.
For many people, however, the Border Collie can be very full on, and they have a reputation for having little in the way of an ‘off’ switch and require hour upon hour of exercise every day. Ever longer walks and repeated lengthy sessions of high energy play (often featuring a ball chucker which can, when used frequently and for a high number of repetitions, which can lead to the development of joint problems and the onset of arthritis) only build up the dog’s stamina, leaving them needing even more exercise and compounding the situation further.
The good news is that there are ways to satisfy those busy brains and provide mental exercise for our dogs that won’t mean they need even more the next day and the day after that. It’s an activity that is suitable for any dog, but which can be really calming for high energy dogs who find it difficult to settle and switch off – scentwork.
I am currently taking part in an amazing coaching experience on the topic of Teaching Scentwork with the lovely Sally Gutteridge, a former Army dog trainer with masses of experience in training dogs to search for all kinds of items. All of us in the coaching programme are teaching our own dogs at the moment so, for me, that means working with Finn. He appears on this blog frequently, as he is the inspiration for much of what I do.
 |
| I'm biased, but how gorgeous is he? |
For those who are not familiar with my boy, he’s a 6-year-old tri blue merle collie, and is a sensitive boy with a tendency to worry about things and who is extremely wary of other dogs and people he doesn’t know. He is a gorgeous lovebug with his chosen people, and a dog who absolutely adores training and working with me to learn things. I wasn’t sure at first how well he’d take to the scentwork as he seems to use his eyes a lot for searching (not unusual in a herding breed who were developed to be highly attuned to motion) and, if I threw a treat into grass, would seem to give up hunting for it quite quickly if he couldn’t see it and would need prompting by me pointing towards where the treat landed to give him a starting point.
He has completely blown me away by how well he’s taken to it. With a specific scent to find, and by introducing that scent to him through playing with a toy then starting to reward him for touching the toy and extending it to hunting for it in various locations around the house and garden, he’s become really enthusiastic about the activity, tail wagging as he searches around the garden for the scent and then comes rushing for his reward when he finds it and hears me give his marker word (an enthusiastic ‘yes!’) and then sets himself up to wait and see if we’re going to search again.
Dogs are supremely suited to scentwork as an activity. They have approximately 300 million scent receptors, specialised nerve cells designed to get the scent information to the right part of the brain for processing. Compare this to us humans with our around 6 million scent receptors, and it starts to become clear just how much more olfactory capability our dogs have than we do. The area of the brain dedicated to analysing and processing scent information is also around 40 times larger in dogs than in humans, which goes to show that scent is really the primary sense that dogs use to process and make sense of their world.
That being the case, it means that there is this incredible opportunity to use scent to enrich the lives of our dogs and to give them mental exercise rather than feeling a constant need to provide more and more physical exercise to tire them out.
Starting the process of encouraging a dog to use their nose really doesn’t have to be difficult or expensive – we can start with something as simple as scattering some of their daily food ration or some tasty treats in the garden or around the house for them to find. Another alternative to get the nose working is to use enrichment activities like snuffle mats or hiding treats inside paper, cereal boxes and toilet roll tubes inside another box (a great way to get some extra use out of safe household recycling items). Perhaps find places around the garden to hide treats once your dog has started to get the idea, so it involves a little more work and effort from them to locate and access the food.
With a clever dog who really seems to be enjoying using their nose, I absolutely recommend trying scentwork and setting up situations for your dog to start searching. It’s so easy to start doing this at home – a great book to get you started is written by the same lovely person running the coaching programme I’m currently involved in: Enrichment through Scentwork for Highly Aroused Dogs. This book is written for exactly the kind of dogs mentioned at the start of this blog, the high energy and easily excited dogs. Another great option is Scentwork: Step by Step, written by Sara Seymour.
Scentwork is also great for our senior dogs, the ones who can perhaps no longer go for long walks – a combination of sniffy walks and scentwork can really enrich their lives and keep them mentally stimulated and active and give us a fantastic opportunity to watch our dogs being dogs.
* * * * *
You can help to spread the word about the amazing effects of scentwork and how it helps us to give our dogs more opportunities to be dogs, carrying out natural canine behaviours by checking out the 'Let Them Sniff' designs at the Good Guardianship store.
No comments:
Post a Comment