The Scent of a Hot Dog

Scenting class last weekend was very fun, and Cabana did well. She LOVED getting a few hot dog or sausage pieces that were used as bait in the class, quite out of the ordinary fare for her.

The great thing about scenting is that any dog can do it. It's a total obedience-free zone, so even if you have a dog-aggressive or unruly dog, they can still participate in this sport. It's great mental and physical stimulation for them, as well as not too hard on their joints.

We started with easy exercises, similar to what I had done with her in our backyard. But by the end of the class, the instructors made it much trickier by putting the box with treats up on a chair. The dogs were so used to finding the box on the floor that it took all of them a lot longer to find it on top of the chair.

The video below shows Cabana's last search. It takes her a LONG time, meaning almost 2 minutes. She was much speedier on her other searches. The interesting thing is that scent gets blown around, and it was very windy that day and drafty in the room. Also, scent travels down and pools underneath. The box with treats is on the last chair to the left of the screen, and they placed another empty box underneath the chair to help catch the scent.

The laughter in the video is because I made a joke in the middle of Cabana's search because it feels like she's taking so long. The class was supposed to end at 5:00, but the instructors said it might go overtime, until maybe 5:15. So I joked, "5:20, 5:30?", meaning we might be here even longer because of Cabana.

Near the end, you will see Cabana's nose go up as she catches the scent higher up. Previously, she'd been sniffing at ground level. That's the cue that she's got the scent and is about to find the treats. It's pretty interesting to see the cues that the dog gives.

Scenting Videos

Cabana and I are signed up for a beginning scenting class this weekend, along with career changed pal Dagan. The instructor sent the students an email, saying that we should bring crates for our dogs to hang out in when it's not their turn and to bring some "stinky" treats. She also told us to watch this short clip on YouTube of a dog doing his first search exercise.


(Video description: a young doberman searches a line of empty boxes in a hallway, looking for a treat.)

After watching the video, I decided to practice with Cabana. She hasn't been in her crate for probably a year, so I figured it would be good for her to get comfortable with being in there again. I set up some empty boxes and put a treat in the one closest to me, thinking I'd make it "tough" on her by putting it far away from her. It didn't really work that way....


(Video description: Cabana is in a red collapsible crate in our backyard, she comes out when I call her and comes toward me; she gets treat out of the box closest to me and furthest from her crate.)

It was too easy, so on subsequent attempts, I tried to make it more difficult, moving the boxes in different configurations and even rubbing the treat in the other boxes to throw Cabana off the scent.

Here's a video of Cabana on her last exercise. I think she was getting tired (it was our 9th round), so she isn't searching with much zeal. Then, at the end, because I was having her get in her collapsible crate after each search, I told her to "kennel" (enter her crate). What she did INSTEAD is hilarious.


(Video description: Cabana comes out of her red crate and goes to our side yard where I have the boxes set up, she meanders about for a while, then finally finds the treat in the farthest box; she comes back toward me and around the corner toward her crate; I keep pointing at the crate while telling her to kennel; she ends up jumping on top of the crate and making it collapse.)

I don't know if Cabana got turned around and couldn't find the entrance to her kennel, or if she'd just had ENOUGH! In any case, she literally "packed it in" for the day.