Scatter and Sniff

Dogs noses are amazing

Dogs love sniffing. For many, it is one of their favourite pastimes. Dogs have about 300 million olfactory receptors in their noses (whereas humans have about 6 million). Furthermore, the part of their brain dedicated to interpreting these is about 40 times larger than ours so they can smell exactly who has passed by and when just by sniffing the bushes. You might be worried if your dog goes out of sight on a walk, but chances are, he can still smell you a mile off!

Sniffing is calming for dogs. It lowers their heart rate and helps them relax. A dog is often more tired after a good sniffy walk, than a fast paced walk due to the extra stimulation processing all the smells.

Scatter some treats to distract and calm

Scattering treats on the ground is a brilliant way to both distract your dog and to calm him down. It can be really useful, particularly in the following ways:

To keep his attention if there are other exciting things that might attract him across the other side of the field (dogs, squirrels, footballers etc). You can throw some treats around in the grass and keep him busy searching.
If you are on a walk and see something scary coming towards you (a dog, a bike, pram etc) , throw some treats in the verge. It will distract him and keep him busy whilst the scary thing passes. It also brings his gaze downwards, averting a stare at the potential threat.
If your dog gets too excited passing or greeting other people or dogs, you can throw some treats down away from the person and it will distract his attention and calm him down.
If your dog has crazy zoomies or gets over excited, sniffing is a good way to calm him down and give his brain something to focus on.

Time to lose the food bowl

Rather than put your dogs food in a bowl, you can use his daily food allowance for training and to keep his focus on you whilst out and about. You can also use it to keep his mind occupied during the day. Here are some examples to get you started:

Scattering his food in the grass in the garden will keep him occupied for a good while searching for every last morsel.
Throw it around and get him to run and chase for it, try chucking it between your legs, around your body, he will love the chase and the movement.
Hide the food around the house and make him search for it.
Chuck it in a cardboard box filled with empty toilet rolls or scrunched up paper.
Put the kibble in a towel and roll it up - he will have to work out how to unroll it.
Put the kibble in a pot of broth and freeze it - especially great for a hot day!
Chopped up veg in a paddling pool is also great for cooling down on a hot day (make sure the water is not too deep)
Put the food in a kong or puzzle to make him work for it.
Hide the kibble in a muffin tin under tennis balls.
Put kibble in an empty water bottle and get him to work out how to extract them.
Take his food on your walk and use it to keep his attention on you during your walk by scattering as you go or throwing it around in the park.

Scent work

If your dogs seems to love sniffing out his treats, you could consider putting his nose to work with some scent training. Dogs are capable of amazing things with a little training you could soon be hunting, helping with search and rescue, working as a sniffer dog or competing in trials. https://scentworkuk.com/on-line-trials/ holds details of registered trainers or you could ask around in your local area.

Further training

If your dog loves to scatter and sniff then I can recommend the online training programes from Absolute Dogs. Their fun videos and games tackle many of the common issues around concentration and recall that we all experience.

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