This one is so much fun, i can’t believe the breeders haven’t made it a public sport!
Dogs can ‘see’ the world thru their sense of smell. You can teach your dog to show you things that are so beyond what you can see yourself, that is like being a seer or a medium.
Like if somebody came into your house while you and your dog were gone, you might not even know that anyone had been there until you noticed something missing.
Your dog would know the moment he walked into the house that somebody had been there, who they were (if the dog had ever met the thief), how long ago they came and left, everything they touched, and he could follow the scent of the thief’s footprints around the house even though none of us could see any foot print. The dog could also tell if the thief had cancer or disease, was drunk or on drugs, was male or female, and the dog could follow the thief’s footprints all the way to his house, and then could sniff out your stolen stuff from the thief’s house. How cool is that?
You can teach your dog to do this, and it wont cost you anything, but it does take time, and you have to know how to train a dog to be a sniffer. Sherlock Holmes move over!
I once saw on TV, where a bunch of people each threw ONE of their shoes into a ring. A sniffer dog was brought in and he found each shoe and returned it to the right person.
You can hold one stick in your hands for a moment, then toss it into a pile of sticks that you never touch, and a trained dog will find the exact stick that you touched and bring that one back, not any other. You just have to get the dog to think fetching is fun, then teach him you only want to play with that one stick. He will sniff until he finds the stick that has the scent of your hands on it, and learn to bring back just that one. You can do the same thing with balls. How do dog’s sniff thing so well?
If you work at it, you can teach a dog to sniff something (like a toy gun) and take you to the person who has been handling it. You can learn from your dog.
Sniffer dogs are underused by police and security departments. I think many government agencies would like to buy trained dogs, but there aren’t many for sale, and to stand up in court, the government needs uniform training and accuracy measurements, so that they can prove that everything was done right.
I trained one of my dogs to track, and it is amazing to watch a dog work with her nose. Whether I was the person hiding or following with the dog, I found that trying to run away from a tracking dog by circling, climbing over rocks, walking down a stream, didn’t even slow her down; she RAN finding the person, and it was easy to teach.
Dogs know if a scent is getting stronger or weaker.
Most anyone who has let a tracking dog run loose, has had that dog encounter scent track at right angles (the dog is running north-south, and finds a track that goes east-west).
Dogs, when they first encounter a track at right angles, will sometimes turn right, when they should have turned left, or turn left when then should have turned right.
There is a term for this: “back-tracking”. My dog could figure out that she was going the wrong way, but I did see one untrained, loose, running dog, disappear going the wrong way.
Dogs can be taught to find the bodies of drowning victims in a lake, by taking the trained dog out in a boat, and having the dog bark when he sniffs where the smell of the dead body is floating up. I saw how to do that on TV.
Dogs really do have an amazing ability to scent disease. They have been shown to be able to tell the difference between vials with cancer cells in them and vials with normal cells in them. Biopsy shows they can also find early skin cancers on people, before they are are noticeable.
Guard dog aren’t any better at sniffing than poodles, dachshunds, or mutts. Beagles are good sniffers, shelties aren’t as good nosed but are easy to train. Most any dog can be trained to sniff.
This sport would be a good one for the public and for dogs. It needs to be organized and promoted. Winning dogs need to be the same ones who would be most reliable and safe in hospitals, airports, and public places.
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