Walking: an olfactory odyssey

Walking your dog: an essential activity

The importance of taking walks with your dog is something that most owners agree with. And it’s absolutely true: walking your dog is very important , not only for their physical health, but also for their mental health.

Taking regular walks with your dog can help him stay in good physical shape and expend his energy productively. However, the benefits can go even further and without much extra effort, simply by changing one element during a walk: letting the dog sniff and smell while walking .

Letting your dog explore the scents along his path during his walk requires a lot of concentration and therefore makes him use up a lot more energy!

Sniff on command

As beneficial as it is, it is not always possible to let the dog smell the entire walk. However, it is possible to train a dog to go sniff on command and stop smelling on command to continue the walk. Here’s how to do it:

1. Observe where your dog tends to want to go to smell. Common places such as a pole, a green space or a tree.
2. With your dog on a leash, stop about 2 feet away from the spot in question.
3. Before letting your dog go smell, say, “Go smell!” in a cheerful way.
4. Once you give the command, quickly move towards the location.
5. You can point to the spot to encourage your dog to investigate.
6. Let your dog smell for 2 minutes.
7. Call your dog back by saying, “That’s it!” in a cheerful manner.
8. If your dog does not come back right away, encourage him by tapping your thighs.
9. When your dog comes back to you, praise him happily and give him a treat.
10. Continue walking and repeat as needed.

The secret of the experts: the Premack concept

Now that you know how fun sniffing, smelling, and exploring scents is for your dog, and that it can even be done on command, you’re ready for the next step! You’ll be able to harness the secret of professional trainers: the Premack Principle .

The principle of Premack is simple: it is when a probable behavior becomes the consequence of a less probable behavior . It is the same technique that your parents used to make you eat your vegetables: “eat your vegetables and then you can eat dessert”. The condition for having dessert is therefore to eat your vegetables first.

We can use this same principle with dogs, but with different conditions. In the context of a walk, vegetables can be obedience behaviors and dessert can be having access to smells.

Here are the steps to using scents as rewards:

1. Observe where your dog tends to want to go to smell. Places such as a pole, a green space or a tree.
2. With your dog on a leash, stop about 2 feet away from the spot in question.
3. Call your dog back to you, encouraging him if necessary.
4. Wait for your dog to come directly to you.
5. Then say, “Go smell!” in a cheerful way.
6. Once you give the command, quickly move towards the location.
7. You can point to the spot to encourage your dog to investigate.
8. Let your dog smell for 2 minutes.
9. Call your dog back by saying, “That’s it!” in a cheerful manner.
10. If your dog does not come back right away, encourage him by tapping your thighs.
11. When your dog comes back to you, praise him happily and give him a treat.
12. Continue walking and repeat as needed.

In this example, the dog is being asked to come back when called, but the dog can be asked to sit instead. The goal is to be able to reward the dog for desirable behaviors using access to odors as a reward.

>> Please note that if you want to teach him both commands, you will need different cues: one can be “go smell!” and the other can be “go smell!” or any other command of your choice. This way, the dog will not confuse the two.

Finally, here is a video on the power of your dog’s nose and the importance of olfaction:

[su_youtube url=”https://youtu.be/p7fXa2Occ_U”]

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