A world of scent

Although they share a thousand-year-old coexistence, men and dogs orient their interests in the world in a substantially different way. We as humans are sight-oriented animals this means that sight is our dominant sense.

This course is for anyone interested in scent oriented activities: searching for missing people, odors detection. No matter whether you practice these disciplines for passion or work, I will try to guide you through the wonderful world of scent and pass on my passion.

Dogs are, above all, smelling oriented animal. Sense of smell is the dominant one, followed by hearing and then sight. This is a self-learn course aimed to cover the main topics related to the dog’s sense of smell.

The first problem that is faced by anyone who decides to train a dog to search for people or detection is the difficulty in defining what they are working on.

In recent years science has focused on many areas that may be useful to those who work with the dog’s nose. Today we have more knowledge about the physiology of smell, scent perception, theory of learning, and how odors behaves.

During the course we will try to combine theoretical knowledge with dog training.

Lessons:

• Week 1 22 Dec 2024
  • Introduction

    Read this before proceeding to the first lesson!…

  • Basic concepts

    One nose a lot of activities!  When we talk about dogs that works with their noses we talk about animals…

  • Definition of behavior

    Here we will introduce some key concepts relating to dog behavior. Don’t worry if some concepts will seem complicated to…

  • How dogs learns

    It is not easy to define what is meant by the word learning. The simplest definition refers to the concept…

  • Memory

    Memory is crucial in learning. Without the ability to remember there can be no learning: memory can be defined as…

  • Motivation, stress, arousal

    No behavior can be observed if an animal is not motivated. Motivation can be defined as the factor that determines…

  • Drives

    Drive in psychology is a word used to indicate an impulse, a pulsion (Hull) or a push, to indicate an…

  • A world of scent

    Two species, two different looks at the world. Although they share a thousand-year-old coexistence, men and dogs orient their interests…

• Week 2 22 Dec 2024
  • The underrated nose

    What about the human nose? ‘Sense of smell?’ he says. ‘I never gave it a thought. You don’t normally give it…

  • The nose

    We already understood that the dog’s nose is a perfect sniffing machine but, how does it works?  The canine…

  • What is odor?

    We concluded the last lesson by saying that vocabulary has very few terms to define the concept of smell and…

  • Scent perception

    Although the dog’s nose is widely used by humans with detection training and search&rescue training, a highly sensitive nose is…

  • From the nose to the brain

    In summary, it is important to remember that each nerve cell has a type of receptor, that olfactory sensory cells…

• Week 3 22 Dec 2024
  • Human scent

    As we saw in the introductory lesson, there are many dogs that work with human smell and do different jobs.

  • Individuality of human scent

    Science provides us with much evidence about the individuality of human scent. In this lesson I will try…

  • Alive vs. dead

    Alive scent vs. dead scent Transition between life and death is also accompanied by a change in level of volatile…

  • Human scent and environment

    The environment has virtually endless effects on the scent availability and it is responsible for most of the scent distortions…

  • How scent moves

    Let’s imagine that the smoke bomb is a person’s body. The smoke gas is as warm as the body…

  • A link to dog training

    We can train dogs on general human scent or we can use individuality of human scent.  Let’s take a look…

  • Use of progression plans

    Now we have figured out how to collect data and how to display it in graphical form. It’s important to…

• Week 4 22 Dec 2024
  • How does tobacco smells?

    Tobacco is an agricultural product, obtained from the leaves of plants of the genus Nicotiana. It can be consumed, used…

  • Detection dogs

    Detection is an activity that involves the use of a dog trained to detect the presence of certain odors and…

  • Detection for civilians

    Detection? Not just for police. Television series such as “Airport Security” have made the work of detection dogs known to…

  • Scent of products: explosives

    During week 4 we will go through scent characteristics of different products. We will start with explosives.  This course is…

  • How do explosives smell?

    Explosives usually have a very low vapour pressure.  This characteristic means that explosives are not really volatile and they are…

  • How do narcotics smell?

    Narcotics have been known and used by man since ancient times, when they were considered magical and used in religious…

  • Variation of training aids

    It is important to remember that first thing we need to train a detection dog is a huge amount of…

• Week 5 22 Dec 2024
  • Theory of learning in practice

    During the first week of the course we studied in depth how dogs learn. Now it is time to link…

  • Phases of training

    In any training we do with our dogs we have usually 4 different phases.  During this last lecture for week…

  • Basic training strategies

    Before you start your training you should answer some questions. Which is your final goal?  Which is your target scent?…

  • Searching for missing pets

    Recently, several associations are spreading, offering owners the possibility to search for lost pets with the help of K9 units…

• Week 6 22 Dec 2024
  • How to measure behavior

    A property is a fundamental quality of a natural phenomenon. The properties of behaviour are qualitative, therefore not measurable. These…

  • Collecting data

    A data is the quantitative result of a deliberate, planned and usually controlled observation. Data collection is crucial for the…

  • Visualize data

    If you do not show the data collected in graphical form, then you could be in trouble during training review. …

  • Outro

    Farewell and Keep Moving Forward! Mega Cheers and a round of applause…

Free Lesson