One of the most fun and gratifying things to “train with” a dog is scent-detection. I say “train with” as opposed to “train to” because it’s such a natural act for the dog. It’s more of a freeing up of the dog to be a dog rather then to train a dog to be a more livable companion. Anyway the pdf below is an interesting article about dogs used by humans to locate a range of substances because of their superior olfactory acuity. The paper reviews the use of scent-detection dogs to detect non-biological scents (explosives, chemical contaminants, illegal drugs) and biological scents (human odours, animal scents) and their role in conservation.
If you find this sort of thing interesting and think your dog would too sign up for my companion dog scent detection class and learn to work with your dog to find specific cleverly hidden scents. Any breed, any age and obedience doesn’t matter. You won’t believe what your dog will learn to do and how much fun he or she will have.
