Keep Sniffing with your new rescue dog
HOW SCENTWORK BUILD BONDS AND CONFIDENCE
Over the past few years I have been teaching scentwork to dogs and their owners. Or rather the dogs have been given the opportunity to show off their scenting abilities to their owners. Barney my very scared and consequently people aggressive German Shepherd, loves to use his nose and we taught him scentwork so he would stay relaxed in a class and learn that not everyone was here to hurt him.
Scentwork is such a lovely thing to do with your dog. It builds confidence and strengthens bonds and is suitable for all ages, breeds and dogs. We have found that it helps with dogs sleep as well. Using their noses is such a natural ability, it helps promote the deep and restorative sleep that all dogs need. It is all inclusive to all owners as well. If you have someone with a disability, they can still do it with their dogs.
So, if you are looking for something new to teach your dog and tried agility and not quite fit enough?
May be your dog has had an injury but still needs to use its brain. Have you ever wondered how and what your dog is doing when they use their nose and follow a scent? Scentwork uses the same methods as a customs and excise dog or medical detection dog and builds great teams.
All training usually involves showing a dog what to do, and encouraging by food, toys or treats the dog to carry out your command. And all dogs need to have boundaries, don’t get wrong, but with scentwork we are working together. It is less of telling and more asking and with so many of our rescue dogs, this is what needed to help build bonds. It is also a great enrichment exercise for them and can be included in their walks.
I use scentwork to help rescue dogs and reactive dogs and offer 1:1 sessions to show owners how they can start to teach their dog to focus on them instead of worrying about their surroundings. Then once they have learnt the methods, we can start to introduce them to small groups. The dogs are so busy “working” with their owners, they have less time to worry about others – so a win win for all concerned.
If you would love to find out more about our scentwork classes, then why not contact me to sign up – drop me an email telling me all about your dog and how best we can help. info@thewalkaboutway.co.uk
