I run a Scentwork classes when I am not busy training my own dogs so as part of my continued professional development I signed up for a World Scent Dog Association 2 day course.
It was held at a lovely venue but public access so members of the public, their children and dogs coming and going randomly all the time, that suited my girl as she’s comfortable around other dogs, people and busy environments in general but still meant being much more aware of surroundings that would be necessary in a private or enclosed area. Most of day 1 and 2 encompassed things that I already train, retrieves on catnip articles, learning to target and freeze, how scent works etc all of which I know a good deal about already. Because of our general gundog training I had a good understanding of the wind and weather, temperatures etc and how scent is affected by this. There were some slightly different methods of achieving things, as always its always interesting to hear different views etc.
The informative stuff came at the end of day 2 for me and this was really about what the ‘Manhunt’ actually was as I have seen the WSDA posts in the past but not really understood what was the aim of it and was my main reason for signing up, to find out what it was really all about. At the end of day 2 a ‘mini manhunt’ was conducted and at that point the point became clear. In essence its about solving clues as the human part of the team and the dog half using their nose in various ways to find articles and target odours etc within time frames etc in a competition style. I did enjoy the ‘mini manhunt’ at the end and can see how this could be a challenging and fun thing to do with your dog.