It can be exhausting and frustrating living with a tireless dog, one with boundless energy and no off switch! These dogs often find it hard to concentrate, to listen and respond to you, and to feel calm and relaxed.
Living with a dog who struggles with health or age related issues can be equally challenging.
This course teaches you how to harness your dog's natural ability to sniff and to use this skill to improve your life, and your dog's life. By engaging with your dog in an activity that she already loves you can quickly help your dog to pay more attention to you, to be able to concentrate and in turn feel tired and relaxed. Calm dogs live longer (stress has been shown to be detrimental to the health of dogs and people), are happier and are more rewarding companions.
Whatever your dog needs, be it mental stimulation, physical challenge or life skills, this course is for you.
I know it can be scary to set a new goal. Would I be wrong to say that dog training isn't as easy as it looks? I have taught so many dogs and coached so many people that this training method has been tested and honed to within an inch of it's life. I know you can do it and I know that your dog will love it!
I've designed this course to allow all dogs to learn how to search for a specific scent for fun. This means that all advice is positive reward based, designed to help all dogs, whether food or toy oriented, no matter their age or breed type, and requires zero prior training or scentwork experience. Really - your dog doesn't have to know anything before learning how to sniff for a specific scent.
You can aim for a brighter future with your dog if you can work together, play together
and have a better understanding of each other.
You know this. But you might be thinking that you can't learn dog training online, or that it will be too complicated or too time consuming. Would I have had a successful 30 year career as a dog trainer if I didn't know how to break skills down into achievable steps? Or if I couldn't explain why to choose one method over another without drowning you in a sea of jargon? You're smart, you know when something isn't genuine and you know when claims are made if they smell true or not.
What I know is that teaching scentwork has been life changing for me and for my clients. It's emotional, it's inspirational and it's magical - to see our pet dogs strutting their scentwork stuff brings such strong feelings of pride and respect, who wouldn't want to feel that?
Teach your dog to sniff is my most popular course
Your pet dog will be a detector dog by the end of this course
Those who play together, stay together
Enhance your relationship with your dog while learning new skills
Learn in the comfort of your own home
No need to be out in wet, muddy fields or chilly village halls
Julie loved this course!
I had been struggling to teach my dog scent discrimination for obedience as she found the whole exercise dull. I enrolled in the course with low expectations, however right from the start, Lulu loved what we are doing, picked up everything so well and is now a scent monster. She even squeals with excitement when I say “shall we play find Ratty” would highly recommend this course to anyone who wants to do that little bit more with their dog.
Julie Johnson
Course Preview
Here's what the course looks like: a mix of demonstrations, explanations and advice.
I've added new sections - which increases the video content to over 70 minutes - giving the break down of how to understand and manage scent. Plus the background to what and why I teach as I do. This provides a deeper understanding to support you as your scentwork journey begins. Then I take you through all the core steps to get you scentworking: from choosing the scent for your dog to detect, to preparing the scented articles, to your first searches. I'll be with you every step of the way, giving advice and showing you how to succeed. See how to get the most from scentwork by watching videos of dogs learning, demonstrating each step so that you can easily follow along.
I've also added more course notes to each lesson. For easy reference I've collated them into a 52 page downloadable booklet.
Graded quizzes ensure you get the best from the course, and on completion you will receive a graduation certificate. Plus with the bonus lectures, you can discover how the dog's nose works and how scent works. Follow the advice in these lectures so that by the end of this course you will have taught your dog to find a specific scent. Brilliant!
New: Course Booklet
Each section has it's own notes that support and add to the accompanying video lessons. You can now download the course notes booklet. This means all the notes can be kept together which makes it easy to refer to whenever you want.
'My dog loves our scentwork games'
This short course is absolutely packed full of information and I needed to watch the videos a few times to pick everything up. Practical demos were really helpful and made it very easy to get started.
Anne Coulson
Free Search Tracker!
Make the most of this great resource and training aid by filling it in after every search. By recording the details of each search you can easily see what sort of articles your dog is searching for, where, search duration and if the result matched your goal.
You can print out new sheets as often as you like. Different sheets for different dogs. Or for different searches types. For example, you might want to log your outdoor searches in order to spot distractions. Or chart the progress of every search with your new puppy.
Make completing the tracker a regular part of your search routine by filling it in at the end of every search.
If you teach scentwork, you can also use this to keep a record of how your clients are doing. Make sure you are increasing the challenge and ringing the changes at an appropriate rate and scale for each client.
Course Curriculum
You can now learn more for less!
Have you heard about my membership options? Listen up! As a member you get access to a variety of my courses (including this one) and resources for as long as you are subscribed. There are three levels of specially curated courses and resources to help you reach your goals even faster. I can't begin to quantify the value of the content in these memberships. All I can say is that you will have access to a greater number of courses and resources by becoming a member than by enrolling on each one separately. Starting at just £20 p/m you can access numerous courses. And resources.
Yes, you also access to downloadable scentwork resources that I've developed. This 'done for you' library of resources includes infographics, trackers, guides and books. I'm always adding new resources which, depending on your membership tier, you will have access to the minute they're available - and at no extra cost.
What are you waiting for? Click below on the photo for your chosen tier (Pro, Growth or Core) to join today!
Pro Membership
Best for:
Trainers who want to learn more about scentwork for their own dogs. For trainers who want to add supportive scentwork as a new service option. And for non-trainers who absolutely adore scentwork and want to learn as much as they can to enhance their scentwork partnerships.
Growth Membership
Best for:
Most likely growth members will already have done a little scentwork and know they want to learn more. But it's also suitable for super keen beginners. This tier will take you from complete beginner to experienced scentworker.
Core Membership
Best for:
Complete novices who want to dip their toe in the scentwork water. Go from complete novice to a scentwork team that can work both simple and complex searches.
Hi, I’m Pam Mackinnon, with my clever labrador Cherry Blossom
I'm here to guide you through this course, to take you by the hand, or leash, and help you to become a scentwork team. I've coached thousands of dogs and people throughout my 30 years, and still nothing gives me more pleasure than those lightbulb moments when the team understands the task and achieves the skill.
We all start somewhere and my job is to share my experience to make it easy for you and your dog be a successful scentwork team. I've combined my operational experience as a drug detector dog handler with HM Customs with my long career as a pet dog trainer and behaviour consultant to bring you this proven method of teaching your dog to sniff for a specific scent.