Dog Training Podcast #122 :Training Your Dog to Do Scent-Work/Nose-Work for Canine Enrichment Pet Talk Today Dog Training With Will Bangura, M.S., CDBC, CBCC-KA, CPDT-KA, FFCP

Picture a world where your dog is mentally and physically stimulated, living their best life through the power of smell and exploration. Welcome to our latest episode where we uncover the lifesaving significance of training your dog for an emergency recall, dive into the captivating world of canine enrichment dog training.
Do you wish for a smarter, happier, and healthier dog? We’ve got the secrets right here! In this episode, we journey into the mind of your furry companion, teaching them to recognize and respond to specific scents- just like drug detection dogs and medical alert dogs! Along the way, we explore the importance of Scent-work, nose work, and the benefits of physical exercise for your pets. We promise, by the end of this episode, you'll be equipped with the tools to make a significant difference in your Dog's life, enriching their world So, tune in, subscribe, and leave us a five-star review! Your dog will thank you for it!

Chapters

• 0:00 Emergency Recall and Canine Enrichment
• 12:25 Teaching Dog to Sniff and Discriminate
• 24:01 Enriching Your Dog's Senses

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Raised by wolves with canine DNA and his blood. Having trained more than 24,000 vets, helping you and your fur babies thrive, Live in studio. It's Pet Talk today, with Will Bangura answering your pet behavior and training questions. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome your host and favorite pet behavior expert, Will Bangura.

Speaker 2: 0:34

Good day pet lovers. It's Will Bangura. Thanks for joining me for another episode of Pet Talk today. Hey, today I want to talk about a few things that are very important. That's gonna be canine enrichment. I also want to talk about what is an emergency recall, why you should have one and how do you train that. And then I want to talk about a crazy long word that's called contra-free loading. What does that mean and what does that mean for you and your dog? I'm so glad you could be here today. This is gonna be an exclusive podcast that's only gonna be on the audio podcast of Pet Talk today. This is not anything that's gonna be on Facebook live. Hey, do me a favor, hit that subscribe button. Can you do that for me? We've got a goal. We're trying to get up to 500 subscribers and right now we've got close to 300. So if you could hit that pause button and go subscribe If you haven't subscribed to the Pet Talk today audio podcast, and also, if you could please give us a five-star review, if you could just take a minute, just a minute right now, to give us a five-star review, that would mean everything. Okay, enough of that, let's get on with the show.

Speaker 2: 2:00

So the first thing I want to talk about is probably one of the most important things you could ever teach your dog, and that's called the emergency recall. Now, in just a second, I'm gonna talk about how you train the emergency recall. But I want to give you a story, because I had a client that taught two of their dogs the emergency recall. And in the emergency recall I have people pick a very special name or word for their cue or command for the emergency recall. They don't just say come or hear. Anyway, this client, their special word for their emergency recall was Poughkeepsie. Okay, and an emergency recall is something that you train all the time and you hope you never, ever, ever, have to use it. Now let me tell you what happened. So this client that I'm talking about, that has the emergency recall with the two dogs and the cue, the command for that is Poughkeepsie.

Speaker 2: 3:10

They went out of town and they hired a pet sitter and this pet sitter stayed with the dogs, lived at their house, stayed with the dogs while the pet parents, while the guardians, were gone on vacation. They're about four days into their vacation and they get a phone call from the dog sitter and she's frantic, she's crying, she can barely breathe and she's trying to say to them that both of their dogs got out, that they ran through. They opened the front door, the dogs bolted out. They're down the street. She's been trying to get the dogs and she can't. Every time she goes near them they just run away further. They think it's a fun game. And she is beside herself. So the dog parents, the husband, says we have a cue for the dogs. That's an emergency recall. What I want you to do and make sure they hear it I want you to go out there and say Poughkeepsie. And Sure enough, she goes out there. She says Poughkeepsie, and the dogs stop what they're doing both of them. They turn around and they come running Up to her and now she's able to grab them by the collar and get them back into the home.

Speaker 2: 4:44

So having an emergency recall is Absolutely critical and I want to talk about that today. Also, I want to talk a little bit about canine enrichment. You know that's the big thing now. That's what you're hearing all over the place. You've got all these trainers talking about enrichment, enrichment, enrichment. I want to talk about a very specific kind of enrichment and I want to talk about nose work, because nose work is what dogs were designed to do. They braille the world with their nose. Do you know why their nose is wet? That's to help keep scent there, help to pick up scent and have sent Dogs.

Speaker 2: 5:36

Biggest area of their brain is devoted to their sense of smell. If you don't let your dogs smell, sniff, explore the world, it's like Having you go through the world with a blindfold on. Now listen, when you go for a walk, you need your dog not to pull on the leash. Right, we need to make sure that we train the dogs not to pull on the leash when it's appropriate for them To be able to Smell, because maybe there's no dogs around, there's no people around, there's no distractions. You know, when there's dogs, when there's people, when there are distractions and you're out and about, there are times when you need your dog to focus and be able to walk on a loose leash and pay attention to you. But you also need to let your dog be a dog. They need to smell. When you let your dog smell on the walks, that in and of itself is what's gonna tire them out the most. It's not the walk. What's gonna tire them out is you letting them smell, because they're using their brain and they're using the largest parts of their brain. That's gonna get them tired. That kind of mental Stimulation is gonna tire them. The walks not gonna tire them that much.

Speaker 2: 7:13

First of all, dogs are sprinters. The kind of physical exercise that a dog needs is 20 minutes of sprinting, 20 minutes of you throwing a frisbee, throwing a ball, 20 minutes of you doing wind sprints with your dog. If you're in shape and you can do that, dogs are sprinters. That's why I always tell people that like to take their dogs jogging and they like to run and they like to go for these 5, 10, 15, 20 mile Jogs runs and they want to take their dog with them. I said, hey, dogs weren't built for long distance running. They need to be sprinting, but dogs need to use their nose. If you're not letting your dog have a casual walk where they get to use their nose and Smell everything in the world, you're doing them a disservice. One of the best things that you can do is Let your dog smell. That's the number one thing that they need to do. Let them sniff, sniff, sniff, sniff, sniff and take them to new places when they can get new sniffs.

Speaker 2: 8:25

We're going to be talking about enrichment, but I'm also going to talk about how you can do it yourself enrichment when it comes to nose work and nose work cent work with your dog. Having your dog use its nose to find something is not difficult at all to teach and it's a whole lot of fun. So let's talk about how you can begin the process of teaching your dog to find things with its nose, and you can teach your dog to discriminate between scents. What I mean by that is, for example, when we're teaching dogs to be drug detection dogs or explosive detection dogs, they've got to pick up and hit on a certain smell and they can't be confused with that smell and another smell. They've got to alert on the right smell. While we're not training law enforcement dogs or military dogs, it's just your pet dog and it's very, very easy.

Speaker 2: 9:32

The first thing you're going to want to do is get three containers, and what I like to use is there's like, if you can get these small little butter containers that have the plastic tops that are a circle, little tiny margarine or butter containers, now make sure they're clean. And what I want you to do the top, the plastic top that goes over the butter or margarine container. I just want you to poke a couple little holes in there. Okay, make sure that the holes are the same size in each of the three lids and make sure you have the same number of holes. You don't need a lot. You can just put maybe three holes in there and that's going to be fine. All right, now what we want are two different scents, but we're only going to be rewarding on one of them when your dog finds one of them.

Speaker 2: 10:37

Now, the first thing that you're going to do is you're going to put something that has a scent in one of those containers. I recommend you put a couple of cloves in there. Okay, that's easy for a dog to smell. It's pretty strong. Okay, we're going to be using two containers. One's going to have a couple of cloves in it, the other one's going to have nothing, and you're going to set them apart about 12 to 18 inches apart on the floor. You're going to direct your dog with your hand. You're going to kind of guide your dog to get its nose down and sniff the container that has nothing, and then you're going to go ahead and bring your dog over to the container that has the cloves in it and you're going to somehow get your dog. You know, you just take your finger, take your hand and kind of keep pointing. If you have to get down on your knees and get on the ground to get your dog to sniff, at that do that Okay, whatever it takes.

Speaker 2: 11:42

And when your dog sniffs the container that has the cloves in it, I want you to immediately mark and reward your dog. Now, if you don't know what mark means, you need to find out, because we use a marker training system and that is critical to be able to have good timing and to make things very black and white and clear in the dog's mind. So if you don't know what markers are, go check it out. I've got a full podcast here in the audio podcast of Pet Talk today. Look for episode 80. Episode 80 is an hour, at least an hour, dealing with marker training and then you'll know and then you'll be able to use it for this. But let me get back to how we train, how we teach Centwork.

Speaker 2: 12:25

So you've got the two containers. One container has a couple of cloves in it. The other container has nothing in it. The tops of the containers have a couple holds in it and they're about 18 inches apart. Like I said, you get your dog to sniff the container on the ground. By the way, you're going to set these on the floor, okay, and you're going to get the dog to sniff the container that has nothing in it. Then you're going to have the dog sniff the container that has the cloves in it. You're going to go ahead and mark and reward. Then you're going to take the dog out of the room, leave the containers exactly where they were, bring your dog back in there and again lead your dog over to the container that has nothing in it. Let your dog smell that, then lead your dog over to the container again that has the cloves in it and when your dog is at that container and smelling, mark and reward the dog. Now, make sure you're using a really high value food reward something your dog absolutely loves. Or if your dog is just absolutely toy crazy, you can use a toy for this. That might be a bigger reinforcer for your dog. You just got to be able to get it back again so that you can do a second repetition.

Speaker 2: 13:47

Now what I want you to do the first day. I want you to do that about six, seven times. You're just going to repeat that. All right, now, day two. You're gonna do the exact same thing, but you're gonna bring your dog over to the container that has the cloves in it. You're gonna mark and reward, and then you're gonna bring your dog over to the container that has nothing and you're gonna do nothing, and then you're gonna bring your dog back to the container that has the cloves, get the dog to sniff that. You're gonna mark and reward.

Speaker 2: 14:29

Now, again, I want you to do this five to seven times in a row. You wanna do this every day. You can do this in different locations, you can do this in different rooms, and the goal of the exercise is to teach the dog discrimination with their cent work. They need to understand that it's the cloves that gets the reward, and we're gonna make that happen because we have to teach the dog. Hey, this is the cent we want you to find, and when you find it, you're gonna get a reward. All right, so for several days you're gonna go through that same process over and over and make sure it's fun. Okay, you should be having a lot of fun with this stuff.

Speaker 2: 15:17

Okay, now, after you've done it for that amount of time, when you get into, maybe the second week. Now what I want you to do when your dog smells the right container, you're going to add a queue. You're gonna overlay a queue. You're gonna label it. You could say search. Now we're not asking for it, we're leading the dog to the cloves, the dog smells it. As the dog smells it, you're going search, search just once and then you're gonna mark and reward. If you use a clicker, you're gonna click and reward. If you use a verbal marker, you're gonna use that verbal marker and reward. But first you're going to overlay the queue.

Speaker 2: 16:06

We've gotta start making an association that the queue of search means I want you to smell the cloves, I want you to find the cloves. Now the dog doesn't have to search yet, but we've got to create the pattern. We've gotta create the association that the word search and the smell of cloves smelling cloves are the same thing. They're paired together and when you do that you get a reward. And you're gonna do that for about a week. You're just gonna keep doing the exact same thing you're doing, but you're getting your dog familiar with the process. We want you to smell cloves, not something else, and it's smelling the cloves that gets the reward. And we're starting to overlay the word search. So the process is you lead the dog to the cloves. The dog smells the cloves, you say search and you mark and reward. Now, right before that, you were sending your dog, or you're helping your dog, guiding your dog over to the container that has nothing. All right, once you've done that for about a week or two, you should be in a really good place. Your dog should understand what search is.

Speaker 2: 17:18

And as you're walking into the, you know, here we go. We're at the end of week two. We've been practicing everything that I've been talking about. Now you're gonna test it. You're gonna walk with your dog halfway into the room. You've already got the container set up, by the way. You're gonna set those containers up when the dog's not looking at you, not watching you. That's important. All right, you bring your dog into the room and you've been doing this. Right now you start doing this in the same room. Yes, I said you need to do it in different rooms, different locations, but that's after you have the foundation work done. First we gotta teach the dog what this is all about. Now you're at week three. I want you to test it.

Speaker 2: 18:03

If you say search, does your dog go over to the container that has the cloves in it. You know your dog's got two choices. You know your dog's got two choices. Maybe If you've always had the container that had the clothes on the left side and the empty container was on the right side, and again they're about 18 inches apart, maybe this day that you're gonna test it, you change the positions. You put the Clothes, the container with the clothes, over on the opposite side. When your dog goes to sniff the clothes, you're gonna mark and reward. But remember, now we're asking for it. We're saying search. If the dog gets distracted, say search again. If the dog continues to get distracted, help guide the dog down to the container that doesn't have anything. Say search, then help guide the dog. Or see if your dog now then moves over To the container then has the clothes. Anytime your dog does that and smells that container, you're going to mark and reward.

Speaker 2: 19:19

Now, once you can ask for it, you can say search and your dog is consistently Going to the one that has the clothes, then we're gonna start making this a little more difficult. Now what we're gonna do is we're gonna have four containers, but only one of those containers is going to have the clothes in it. All right, we're gonna do everything that we've been doing and we're gonna say search, the dog's gonna start sniffing containers. When the dog gets to the container then has the clothes and sniffs on that container, I want you then to say sit, and then immediately mark and reward. Now one of the things that we're adding besides having four containers and only one of them has clothes in it, making it a little more challenging for the dog, we're going to begin to teach the dog when you smell the correct scent, you need to sit, and that's sit is going to be the alert or the feedback, the communication the dog's gonna give you that it found the correct scent. Granted, if it found the correct scent, they could make a mistake. All right.

Speaker 2: 20:38

So now the new process. We've got four containers. All of them have holes in it. They got to look the same. Only one has clothes and, by the way, the container that you've put the clothes in. That Is the only container you're putting clothes in right now. Don't ever put that scent in the other containers. You'll contaminate those. Those need to have no scent in them, at least no clothes in it Now again what are we doing?

Speaker 2: 21:08

We're setting up four containers.

Speaker 2: 21:10

One of them has the cloves in it. The other three have nothing. You bring the dog into the room. As you bring the dog into the room, you say search. And when your dog begins to sniff the container that has the cloves, you're going to say sit. And then you're going to mark and reward. You want to do this about five to seven times in a row. Now, why are we not doing it more? Why not do it 10? Why not do it 20? So the dog learns more. We want this to be fun. We want this to be fun. We want the dog to want to do this every single time. So you do these little short sessions and you end them while the dog is still having a blast and wants to do more, wants to earn that high value food reward or that favorite toy more than anything. Ok, now what we're going to start to do after this. You want to make sure that you've got about a week where the dog is pretty consistently going to the correct container and if you do this long enough, you're creating a pattern. The dog goes and sniffs the container with the cloves. You're asking for sit, you mark and reward. What's going to happen. What's going to happen if you keep on doing this. You're going to get to the point where you're going to say search, the dog's going to go ahead and find the container that has the cloves in it and the dog's going to sit automatically because the dog knows the pattern. You're creating the pattern and after doing that, a while of repetition and it getting conditioned, your dog will begin to sit without you saying it. Now, once you have that, now you can start in that same room Hiding containers.

Speaker 2: 23:03

Don't make it too hard in the beginning. And if your dog doesn't move around, if your dog's not looking for containers, you need to help your dog out a little bit. Remember what is the queue search. As long as your dog is moving from container to container and smelling them, you don't need to repeat the queue search again. And if your dog starts to lose interest, hey, an excitable, happy tone. Say search, search and help the dog, guide the dog, teach the dog what success is All right. Now, where can you take this? You can take this to having more and more containers. You can take this to having these containers hidden in different locations and really get your dog using its brain because it's using its nose, and that is the best kind of enrichment that you can do. There's no ends to what you can do with this.

Speaker 2: 24:01

Now, folks, what I want you to know here's the secret Centwork is, centwork is centwork is centwork. The same process is how we teach drug detection dogs. The same process is how we teach drug detection dogs. The same process is how we teach medical alert dogs to alert on somebody who's having a seizure, or to alert on somebody who has diabetes and their blood sugar drops. We're using saliva samples from those people because their odor, their, their body puts out a different scent and that different scent is also going to be in their saliva. So when they're going to have, or when they have, a seizure, or when they, you know, crash with their insulin if they're diabetic, they've got a different scent and we teach the dogs to alert on that scent.

Speaker 2: 24:57

So I want you to have a blast when it comes to doing this enrichment and I want you to have a lot of fun. This is supposed to be fun and this is the best thing that you can do for your dog. It gets to use your nose. Well, I didn't expect to go 25 minutes just talking about nose work and enrichment. I'm going to leave it there, guys, because I really, really, really want you to give that a try and, like I said, hey, thanks for listening everybody. Please, if you love what we're doing, give us a five star review and make sure, if you haven't subscribed to the pet talk today audio podcast, that when it's over, you hit that subscribe button and please leave us a review. Have a good day, everybody. Love you, bye.