The magic world of scent - invisible to us yet visible to dogs!
I have been training my dog in nose work for about 4 years now, but I am still constantly amazed by the world of scent and how dogs navigate it.
In January and February I attended some trailing workshops with my dog Buffy. Trailing (also called mantrailing) is where the dog follows a human scent trail, similar to how search and rescue dogs find lost people. While neither Buffy and I are not aiming at a new career it was magic to watch her follow the trail.
Teaching nose work classes over the past couple of years has really brought home to me how forgiving dogs are. As trainers we aim to have excellent timing so that we can mark a behavior exactly when it happens, and then almost immediately provide a reward (reinforcement). Yet somehow even when we fail with timing and fumble with our treats our dogs still figure out what it was that we want them to do. I think that this is also one of the many lovely things of positive reinforcement based training - the animal gets to win and to feel good no matter what!
Watching dogs learn specific odors is always magic. Once they have learned one they pick up the others so quickly. I have always partly attributed this to careful presentation and teaching - creating a positive association between the odor and treats. But seeing Buffy figure out that she was meant to follow the odor trail from a cloth blew my mind, as there was no careful teaching of the association! Although we started with a couple of short tracks at a trailing workshop in January, she then clearly followed a track over a quarter of a mile! I found it incredible how she just figured it out.
The world of scent is invisible to us, but research into dogs’ brains using MRI scanners has shown that dogs may almost literally be seeing what they smell (Andrews et al. 2022). The MRI research showed a link between the olfactory bulb and the visual cortex in the brain, and this is unique in dogs. This explains the blank look in dogs’ eyes when deeply sniffing - they are ‘seeing’ the smells - and it explains how blind dogs navigate so well. Buffy may have been ‘seeing’ the odor trail that she was following, to the point that it was more important to her than finding the person!
Next time your dog stops you on a walk yet again to sniff something, just pause and marvel at the information that they are taking in!
Andrews, E. F., Pascalau, R., Horowitz, A., Lawrence, G. M. & Johnson, P. J. 2022. Extensive Connections of the Canine Olfactory Pathway Revealed by Tractography and Dissection. J. Neurosci. 42: 6392–6407
Join me to teach your dog how to find things using its nose!
Every Tuesday night I teach odor detection classes at the Canine Learning Center. I also teach nose work classes for Human-Animal Bond in Colorado (HABIC).
At both locations I run classes to accommodate all levels: from dogs who have never done a search before to seasoned pros. All classes are a wonderful way to use your dog’s brain and boost your relationship.
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