How Nosework Transforms Fearful, Reactive, and High-Energy Dogs

Have you seen the amazing videos of dogs hunting for hidden objects, fallen people, or even other lost dogs?

It’s truly incredible to watch… and did you know that ANY dog can learn to hunt like that?

They can! 

That’s what the sport of Nosework is all about.

And in my opinion, it’s the best sport of them all.

Small dogs, big dogs, young dogs, old dogs, disabled dogs, reactive and aggressive dogs, service dogs, and any other kind of dog can participate - and all of them end up loving the game.

And the best part is, you don’t have to compete to participate with your pup - you can use supplies that you have in your home! 

But why would you want to participate in nosework?

Well...

Because it has SO many benefits.

I’ve been working with students on scent work training sport dogs, medical alert dogs, allergen detection dogs, and pet dogs for 5 years now. While I knew it would be fun, I had no idea just how beneficial this training would be in my practice. It is one of the first things I recommend to my reactive, underconfident, anxious, and unsure client dogs. 

Here are all the benefits that I’ve seen while working with dogs on Nosework over the past few years:

Increased Environmental Confidence

One of my favorite parts of nosework training is watching a shy, reserved pup go from slowly moving around the boxes and picking at treats to bursting in the room and racing around with a wildly wagging tail. The first search is always the toughest - and some dogs might not even take treats. But by the end of class, we always have improvement. 

I have watched dogs be nervous of the boxes because they might fall near them to actively knocking the boxes over in order to reach the scent they are finding. I’ve watched reactive dogs go from focusing on the environment and stiffening to completely ignoring everything for the joy of the search. 

One of my favorite classes of all time was using nosework and the joy of searching to introduce dogs’ fears and phobias into their lives in a controlled way to improve their resilience and relaxation. We started with regular searches for a few weeks, and then introduced pieces of their fears during the searches one at a time. It was amazing. We had dogs that were so scared of noises they would tremble searching while sound machines were going off right next to them.

Stress Relief

Just like humans, dogs experience stress relief hormones through exercise. But those hormones are also released while sniffing! Dogs even use sniffing as a cut off signal to other dogs to take a break from play and other events. 

I love to pair scentwork with service dog outings that are a bit harder to give the dogs a nice decompression period afterwards.

Scentwork is also one of the strategies I use with my reactive dog clients in order to meet their exercise and enrichment needs without putting them in situations where they may see another dog - it is a great way for them to let loose and be a dog without risk of reactions.

Increased Optimism

This one might seem a little weird, but there was actually an entire study based on this hypothesis. 

The study tested optimism by whether a dog would approach a container to see if it had treats inside after a series of trials where the dog either found a treat or didn’t. The dogs who practiced nosework approached the new container more quickly - demonstrating that they thought the chances of finding a treat inside were higher than the dogs who practiced obedience.

This study was awesome, but I’ve also seen this in my own practice. The more a dog practices nosework, the more behaviors they offer during training, and the more confident they seem over all. I love seeing the differences in training before and after nosework practice because it can almost seem like an entirely different dog. Willing and motivated to learn.

There are SO MANY more benefits to nosework training for both the handler and the dog, but these are probably my top three that make it my go to recommendation for all of my clients.

If you would like to experience the fun of nosework and also experience these benefits with your own dog, you can get started with the free trial available on my website here. It is always free and has no time limit! 

I also occasionally have live classes as well as in person classes in northern colorado, so if you are interested in really diving deep, send me an email at [email protected]