Why three-dimensional sniffing matters in scent training

When we talk about developing a well-rounded scent-working dog, a big part of the game is teaching problem-solving skills. A crucial way to build this up is to teach your dog to use their nose in three dimensions. This is about helping your dog learn to put their nose down low, at mid-level, as well as up high to find available scent sources within the same search area. A dog who only practices nose height or flat searching will be missing hides and huge piece of the olfactory picture.

Level Up Your Dog’s Scent Work with 3D Sniffing Skills

Dogs are natural sniffers - right ? Noses designed to detect, filter, and process odour in ways we cant imagine, but that doesn't mean they know exactly how to use it in the best way, and for our game were asking of them in scent detection.

Think of it like this; each one of us have a pair of hands. While, some of us can create masterpieces on the art canvas, or carve wood into intricate designs and play Beethoven - Symphony No. 5 on all manner of musical instruments; others like me can hardly bang a nail in to wall, draw a stick man on a page or just about master a chord on the keyboard. Yet we all have a pair of hands. It's the same as our dogs with their noses.

Our role as trainers is not to teach them how to smell, they know how to do this.

We instead create learning experiences that allow dogs to experiment, adapt, and refine their nose and scent detection strategies. This is the heart of scent training: experiential learning, because if your dog has never encountered odour puzzles above their head, floating at mid-level, or tucked into overhead spaces, then they simply will not learn to use their nose in that way.

They won’t magically invent it on their own in a trial, just like I am not going be able to knock up a Picasso overnight. We both need to be taught how, to experience it in training and practice it first. If a dog suddenly meet these challenges without breaking it down for them this way, they can give up or get frustrated, not because they’re incapable, but because they’ve never been shown it works through a three-dimensional search strategy.

This is just as essential as building endurance, stamina, and scent discrimination

How to teach a three-dimensional nose:

You don’t need fancy equipment. Everyday furniture offers a perfect opportunity to teach this behaviour indoors and out - cabinets and drawers, picture frames and curtains, door handles and standing lamps, sheds and fences, garden equipment and vehicles. Each of these things offer placements that will create a slightly different odour pictures at different hights for the dog. Air currents will shift, scent will pool or drift and the dog must decide how to sample the environment in what order to get to source.

To work with one of our instructors here at NOSEYDOGS, come along to any of our scent skills, development and progression sessions to find out more.

These sessions are available online now: www.noseydogs.co.uk , and will progress you and your dogs on building from single placement hides, clear patterning, rewarding associations and generalisation all so your dog starts scanning low, mid level and up high on their own.

Remember: your dog already has an extraordinary nose. You aren’t teaching them how to smell, you’re offering them lots of opportunities to learn through success as a team.