Snooping Around! E-Book

Martina Nau

• Herausgeber: Cadmos Publishing
• Kategorie: Lebensstil
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2011

Seitenzahl: 104

Beschreibung

Discover the importance of nose work for a dog to understand his world This book contains a wealth of ideas on how everybody can keep their dogs busy and entertained with games all around their sense of smell. The tasks and games described here will entertain both the human and their dog, challenging and employing a dog's instincts, and will ultimately strengthen the relationship between us and our dog companions. This book not only contains games, but also search and find' tasks, which can sometimes come very handy!

Leseprobe

Martina Nau

Snooping Around!

Train your dog to be an expert sniffer

Copyright © 2011 Cadmos Publishing Limited, Richmond, UK

Copyright of original edition © 2010 Cadmos Verlag GmbH, Schwarzenbek, Germany

Design: Ravenstein + Partner, Verden

Setting: Das Agenturhaus, Munich

Cover photograph: Ulrich Neddens

Content photos unless otherwise indicated: Ulrich Neddens

Translation: Andrea Höfling

Editorial of the original edition: Maren Müller

Editorial of this edition: Victoria Spicer

E-Book: Satzweiss.com Print Web Software GmbH

All rights reserved: No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record of this book is available from the British Library.

Printed in Germany

ISBN: 978-0-85788-200-4

eISBN: 978-0-85788-612-5

The publisher and the author are not liable for any damage to persons and property that may be incurred in connection with the implementation and application of the exercises and methods described in this book. Although these were designed and tested with great care, they should always be carried out with due circumspection.

Inhalt

A question of snooping …

The dog’s sense of smell

How does a dog learn?

Nose work: going by instinct

Tips and tricks for expert sniffers

Training with scents

Training with game substitutes

Additional help

The eyes during nose work

Object found – what next?

‘Show it to me!’ – marking by sitting or lying down

‘Tell me about it!’ – marking through sound

Pointing

Fetching or retrieving

The Bringsel indication

Snooping games

The test for expert sniffers

Food search games

Packages with goodies everywhere!

Cup games – fun for dogs too

‘Find the duck!’

One duck, many places

‘Search for the lead!’

Of laundry baskets and suitcases

Telling different smells apart

Scent tubes

The search for scent tubes

Telling apart smells in different scent tubes

Lost a glove? No problem!

One pine cone among many

‘Find the twin!’

The support dog for allergy sufferers

The blind retrieve

Things you can search for

We’re searching in open terrain

From search apprentice to journeyman

From journeyman to master snooper

Night shift for bright things

Dragging and tracking

The hot dog drag

The first steps

Dragging for expert sniffers

Dummy, scent tubes, food dummy and toy drags

We combine: Exciting snooping tasks

‘Find the human!’– tracking training

We are tracking

Tracks for expert sniffers

To conclude

Further reading

Thanks ...

The author

Index

A question of snooping …

Snooping permitted? Why, of course it is! If by snooping we mean utilising the canine’s extraordinary powers of smell, we’re thus opening up a new world of discoveries where human and dog can embark on the path to becoming a successful snooper team.

First off, let’s have a closer look at professional sniffer dogs. They co-operate closely with their humans, working as customs and police dogs, as hunting dogs, rescue dogs, as mould-detector dogs and mine-detector dogs. In each case, it is their excellent nose that allows them to become indispensible helpers. Yet almost any dog could theoretically carry out these important tasks – if it had been trained from early youth.

The stars among sniffer dogs include the Bloodhound, the Beagle and certain varieties of Spaniel. This doesn’t mean, however, that other breeds or types of dog are inferior in the olfactory department. Even a dog with the worst possible sense of smell will still have the potential to awe us humans with its abilities.

Dogs are not just equipped with an excellent sense of smell, they also thoroughly enjoy ‘sniffing things out’. That’s the reason why we often have a problem out on walks, when our dog constantly sniffs anything and everything he comes across. Sometimes it can be hard for us to get through to them, so lost are they in their world of interesting smells. However, we can also take advantage of this passion for investigating with their noses – in other words, their ‘snooping’ can be of great benefit to them and to us.

This book covers a lot of ground and will suggest many exciting sniffing ideas to try with your budding snooper dog. We begin with some fun nose games, and move on to suggestions for interesting activities requiring longer and more structured training, using concepts similar to those used with hunting or rescue dogs. In particular, the elements about telling different smells apart, the ‘blind retrieve’, and ‘dragging and tracking’ will be useful for utilising the instincts of dogs with a passion for hunting.

As well as enjoying lots of fun and games, this training will also improve our dog’s levels of calm and obedience. In addition, for working and mixed breeds in particular, an activity only becomes worthwhile if the dogs feel they are doing something important. We should therefore endeavour to give an air of seriousness to our dog’s training.

Before we begin, we will take a further look at the canine’s incredible sense of smell.

The dog’s sense of smell

While the human olfactory organ is comprised of five million smell receptors, the dog – depending on the breed and type – has up to 200 million receptors. The surface area of a dog’s nasal lining is about 85 to 200 square centimetres; a human’s is only five square centimetres. If you also take into account that about ten percent of the dog’s brain is reserved for the processing of olfactory information, you can imagine how much greater the dog’s powers of smell must be compared with the human’s.

Dogs take in a huge quantity of different smells simulataneously, filtering the interesting ones in order to pursue them further. When a dog follows a particular trail, he can smell microscopically small dead skin cells or squashed microbes, no matter if the trail is several hours or even days old. The micro-organisms’ state of decomposition can tell him whether a trail runs from right to left or from left to right. He is able to smell such a scent trail as clearly as we would be able to see it had it been marked with luminous paint. Try to imagine that!

Nose work is extremely tiring for dogs. The high breathing rate involved – up to 300 times per minute – increases their pulse frequency and body temperature. This is exhausting for a dog so, particularly early on in his education, it would be advisable to keep the training sessions shorter in duration. You will, however, notice your dog’s stamina and powers of concentration will improve steadily. This also has a positive effect regarding other aspects of his behaviour – for instance, you might notice an increase in his ability to concentrate on you, despite the presence of external stimuli. You might also find he doesn’t get nervous or stressed as easily. This is because his brain, as well as his body, is becoming fitter and healthier.

When a dog follows a trail, he smells microscopically small particles.

Nose work makes a dog tired and content.

How does a dog learn?

The tasks our dogs learn when doing nose work are often difficult and complex. Not every dog learns the same things in the same way. While dogs who mainly rely on their eyes, such as pastoral breeds (think of a Collie herding sheep) will swiftly benefit from watching; ‘action’ dogs such as­ terriers often learn quickly by trial and error. Others – above all sensitive, emotionled dogs, such as Irish Setters – feel most comfortable and will understand quicker if the first steps of a new exercise are conditioned very clearly. Think a little about your dog, and try different training approaches to discover which approach suits. This is an exciting process, and at the same time will allow you to get to know him better. This will benefit you in terms of your everyday routine, because if you understand which training approach is the most appropriate for your dog, it will be easier and quicker to teach him new things. In addition, you will be able to find explanations for some of his (perhaps previously mysterious) behaviour. When we train a dog, however, we should remember that in stressful situations he may develop a ‘block’, which makes it impossible for him to learn anything. For this reason, you should avoid exposing him to too much stress. This can be triggered by external stimuli, such as the weather, certain smells or other dogs, but also if your dog feels under pressure simply because he doesn’t understand what you want him to do.

There are many possibilities for rewarding a dog; treats are only one among many.

When doing nose work you should always bear in mind the rules for learning:

• Dogs learn with regard to a particular situation, and can only generalise after many repetitions.

• Any small changes in the training structure will always result in a completely new learning situation.

• There has to be a direct chronological link between the dog’s action and the consequences of his action in order for him to learn to associate both with each other – in other words, timing is crucial. We have about one or two seconds in which to give the reward for it to be effective.

• Don’t forget the secondary reinforcer, which could either be a clicker or a reinforcement word such as ‘good’. This should be conditioned, so the dog understands it. You’ll find further reading on this subject listed in the appendix.

• The best reward is always the thing the dog would like best at that one moment in time. This can (but doesn’t necessarily have to) be a treat.

• Your verbal and body language should be unambiguous from your dog’s perspective, to enable him to progress from simple tasks to more complex exercises.

• Dogs often try out whether something works or not. If it does, they’ll repeat the action; if not, they won’t. Make sure the action is either worthwhile for your dog, or not, depending on the learning objective.

• Chains of behaviour (as, for example, a search with subsequent marking or retrieving) are always structured backwards, because this way we can reward each behaviour individually by giving permission for the next behaviour to be carried out, the ultimate goal being the reward – which may be prey, treats or some other desirable thing.

Nose work: going by instinct

Let us consider the fact that in doing ‘snooping’ games, we are actually working with our dog’s instincts. That’s why nose work offers an ideal opportunity – particularly for bored dogs or those with a strong instinct to hunt – to happily tire themselves out while at the same time decreasing their urge for adventure and hunting. Nose work will address various canine instincts – the tracking instinct, the flushing instinct, the retrieving instinct, the mental and physical activity instinct – depending on which snooping task we set.

For the sake of completeness, we will have a brief look at the individual instincts concerned. Then it will become obvious what opportunities the various snooping tasks offer for utilising the dog’s natural instincts (and help with problem behaviours).

The tracking instinct brings to the fore the dog’s desire to pick up a track and follow it.

The flushing instinct requires the dog to work with his nose in the air without picking up a track. At the same time, the dog uses his eyes and ears.

A dog with a pronounced prey instinct doesn’t just want to pursue his prey, but also catch it.

The retrieving instinct makes our dog pick up the found objects and carry them away. The aim of our training should therefore be – if possible – to encourage him to carry the prey to us.

Working with the instincts, rather than against them improves obedience and the human – dog bond.

And finally, nose work also gratifies the dog’s activity instinct, because our dog has to run, climb and crawl in order to find the prey object. This is great for particularly lively and vivacious dogs – they don’t have to aimlessly rush around the countryside any more, but are required to use their brainpower instead in order to follow a plan towards a set goal.