Scent Games For Dogs: Engage Your Pup's Nose For Kinesthetic And Cognitive Fitness.
Of course, dogs possess an incredible sense of smell. The difference between a canine nose and human is about 40 times more sensitive, with over 300 million olfactory receptors compared to just six million in humans. And this fun fact is a superpower that you can tap into for the healthy well-being of your dog: This unusual combination of exercise and mental stimulation from engaging the nose of your dog can keep your pup happy, healthy, and in balance.
Now, let's find out how scent games work, why they are so beneficial, and some fun ways of incorporating them into your dog's daily routine.
- Why Scent Games Are Important for Your Dog
As shown in the evolutionary history of dogs, they are very reliant on the sense of smell to live from finding food to identifying pack members and threats, and a dog relies completely on the sense of smell. Dogs love scent-based activities, and it forms a very important aspect of cognitive and emotional health in animals.
Mental Stimuli: As humans need physical exercise to remain healthy, dogs also require mental stimulation. Any sort of boredom in the dog breeds may turn out to be a destructive tendency as they chew, over-bark, or even dig around. Scent games will keep the dog's brain sharp and the mental outlook focused, hence keeping the anxiety and boredom at bay.
Exercise: While scenty games are less obviously active than walking or jogging, they are much more active than you realize. The dogs are hunting and sniffing their surroundings, walking, running, or digging to find the hidden objects. This keeps them active, especially in older dogs or of a lower energy intensity.
Confidence booster: Scent games help increase a dog's sense of accomplishment and confi dence. The feeling of uncertainty about locating the hidden reward or toy following a scent trail boosts self-esteem, and this can go a long way to help shy dogs, nervous dogs, and anxious dogs as positive reinforcement in building confidence.
Reduces Stress and Anxiety: Dogs have an inherent sense of smell to learn about their surroundings and investigate the environment. Playing scent games helps orient their energy into something productive. It kind of alleviates this feeling of stress and anxiety. Almost like a meditation dog.
How to Start: Setting Up Scent Games
Scent games require no special equipment. Therefore, they are easy, inexpensive, and an excellent way to keep your dog entertained. Here are some simple ways of starting off.
- Treat Hunt
Treat Hunt must be the easiest scent game. You need merely to hide treats around your home and yard and let your dog find them. It can be as simple or as complicated as you would like, based on how much practice your dog has.
Begin by holding some of your dog's favorite treats out for him to sniff.
• Place the treats in easily accessible hide and seek locations for the beginners, behind furniture, under a blanket, around a corner, etc.
• Give commands verbally, like "find it" or "seek," and challenge your dog to find his treats.
• Continue playing hide and seek with harder access points depending on the improving play ability of your dog. You may use several rooms or outdoor areas.
This game is fantastic as it makes them stay for as long as possible because it provokes the natural instinct to forage.
- Snuffle Mat
Snuffle mat: It contains numerous folds, pockets, and fabric strips with treats hidden inside. All these create an illusion of foraging and make your dog sniff out all the food items hidden.
How to play:
•While dispersing a few small pieces of treats or kibble on the mat, make sure to leave some very deeply buried.
•Allow the dog to sniff and follow the source of the food on the mat.
•Snuffle mats will provide excellent service for snuffing dogs, and they give you ample time to feed them since it makes them think twice before sniffing for their food. Snuffle mats are available in pet stores, or you can make your own snuffle mat by making use of fleece strips and a rubber mat.
- Scent Trail
Creating a scent trail is an advanced form of the scent game. The scent game allows your dog to follow an odor to a source.
How to Play:
• Have a smelly treat or food item, such as fried chicken or a cheese piece.
• Drag the treat along the floor to create a scent trail that your dog must track.
• Hide the treat out of view at the end of the scent trail and let your dog follow their nose to the prize.
This game can be changed to longer or twistier trails. The idea is to exercise the nose in tracking, and that is a mentally challenging and rewarding activity for your dog.
- Shell Game
Shell Game: This is one of the easiest games, yet remains very challenging for your dog to figure out which cup contains the treats by using his nose.
How to Play:
• Place one treat under any one of three cups. Use cups that your dog easily knocks or paws at.
• Shuffle the cups around and have the dog sniff to determine which of the three cups contains the treat.
• He should be rewarded if he correctly picks the cup containing a treat, and awarded the treat
This is an excellent game to teach your dog on concentration, as well as helping their problem-solving skills
- Scent Discrimination
To play scent discrimination games teach your dog to identify and differentiate several smells. It is relatively challenging games where your dog is challenged with finding specific smells.
How to Play:
•Glove or sock: Use one object wearing your scent and one without your scent.
•Let your dog sniff both objects. Then, hide them around the room.
•Ask your dog to find the object with your scent.
The numbers of items and their complexity may vary as the dog masters and you can now vary the scent (scentual oils or various food).
- Benefits of Scent Games for All Dogs
Such scent games are very versatile, too, and can be used with dogs of any age, breed, and energy level. Be your dog the most energetic frolicper or something more sedate and less able to play at the high level he once did; scent games are a great outlet for those natural instincts.
For High-Energy Dogs: A breed like Border Collie or Australian Shepherd is such a high-energy breed and feeds off the mental stimulation. It will help that the otherwise mentally exercised dogs really get to exercise.
For seniors: Though they will not be in a position to be able to run miles or play fetch with so much enthusiasm as when they are still young, their sense of smell is there. Scent games make the senior citizen active while his or her brain is still all on his or her toes and bodies are still moving.
For nervous or fearful dogs: scent games are fantastic. The games keep them occupied with something to work on and a reduction in anxiety can be achieved as the dog experiences more structure and positive reinforcement.
- How Can You Integrate Scent Games into Your Daily Life?
The positive thing about smell games is that they do not require much time and particular equipment, so they easily find a place in your daily routine. Here are some recommendations on how to turn a game of smells into a regular activity:
•Before Meals: Employ smell games as a way to slow your dog's eating by having to work for his food.
• On Rainy Days: When taking outdoors is out of the question on rainy days, scent games give your dog a chance to keep his or her mind as active as their body.
• During Training Sessions: Make scent games a part of your training sessions so that your dog remains focused and interested.
A Happy Nose, A Happy Dog
Scent games play right into your dog's most powerful sense: his or her nose. They bring mental stimulation, physcial exercise, even emotional satisfaction. As you tap into your dog's natural instincts with simple yet rewarding activities, you'll be strengthening your bond with them. But you are doing so much for their general well-being at the same time. The next time you need an entertaining way to keep your pup entertained, do not underestimate the power of his nose-it may be the ticket to a happier, healthier dog!
