Are you interested in beginning to scent train your dog? Not only are dogs great companions, but they also have a great sense of smell making them great police dogs, hunting dogs, and more.
To learn more about how to scent train a dog, keep reading. In this guide, we will go over some tips that can help you scent train your dog for whatever reason you’re after.
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Start Small
Whether you are planning to scent train a puppy or a full-grown dog, you will want to start small and make sure you have basic commands covered before moving on to more complex instructions. Basic commands like “sit” and “stay” will be the foundations that you work upon to keep your dog safe and zoned in during the scent training process. Before you let your dog loose in a park or field, you will want to make sure they will stay with you or return to you on command for the protection of your dogs and others.
Have an Understand of How Your Dog Follows a Scent
For the best results when training your dog how to follow scents is to understand how they do so. Watch your dog when they follow scents on trails or walks. This will help you understand when to encourage your dog forward, hold them back, or stay quiet as they explore.
Pay attention to how your dog follows the scent with its snout. Your dog may keep their nose close to the ground as they track scents or they may keep their nose high in the air. Often, this will depend on whether the ground is damp or dry.
However, your dog’s nose should be cold and wet to be able to track scents successfully. Once you have assessed your dog’s actions when following scents, you can begin familiarizing them with the scent that you want them to be able to identify.
Encourage Without Distracting
Once you are in a space where you would like your dog to track a scent, let them off to explore with a cue word and encourage them to find the scent. Watch how your dog searches for the scent, and encourage them if they become distracted. However, it’s important to keep your tone of encouragement moderate so that you don’t distract or excite your dog away from the task at hand.
Once your dog seems to be heading in the right direction, stay quiet and let them find the scent on their own. You want to make sure to wrap up a successful scent training session with tons of encouragement and celebration to make sure this activity is fun for your dog.
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Tips on How to Scent Train a Dog
If you’re wondering how to scent train a dog, keep the tips in this guide in mind for the best results.
For additional dog training and care tips, explore these sections of our site.