A nose knows!

Mum is always looking for cool things to teach me and, my sis, Gracie! We love tricks and learning new things.

With Gracie's great sniffer, Mum thought she would look into scent discrimination and see if it would be a fun thing that she and Gracie could do. She found some great sites that give some basic information on teaching this new behavior. Mum is a big fan of clicker training and searches for ways to use the clicker to help Gracie and me learn.

Mum and Gracie haven't started anything yet, but plan to during the holidays when things are a little quieter around the house. But we wanted to share the info we found with all of you, because learning new stuff is always fun - and giving us pups something to occupy our minds is always a great way to keep us happier and more well behaved.

Working dogs utilize scent discrimination in a wide variety of ways to help people - from drug and bomb sniffing dogs, search and rescue, to the detection of certain types of cancers, mold and more. These pups are highly trained and incredibly effective in their work, as they help humans and other animals in a wide variety of ways. Scent discrimination is also a part of the AKC obedience and tracking competitions.

The first article Mum found was through the Karen Pryer website. Karen is an acclaimed proponent and teacher of clicker training and, like us, believes it is a wonderful way for pups to learn all types of behaviors. The article on scent discrimination discusses the goals of the behavior and how to use a clicker to teach discrimination for obedience.

The K9events website has a great amount of articles relating to information and training of scent discrimination - from finding and scent games, to lots of information articles on how dogs use their nose and how to train them to use it for a purpose.

In a few weeks Mum and Gracie are going to try out this new 'trick'. We'll keep you posted!