The Nose Has It

CIK9 provides quarterly training opportunities for working K9 teams across Central Indiana. We co-host with agencies, vetting professional trainers to travel to Central Indiana so that the K9 teams do not have to travel out of state.  Training with a purpose helps to ensure success in law enforcement because of the skill and not in spite of it. Central Indiana K9 Association (CIK9) wants to elevate the skill levels of every K9 Team across Indiana and beyond.

At Common Scents, our most recent training session, techniques learned showed how the K9s learn for themselves, that their eyes and ears mean nothing when it comes to earning the reward object. Training this way eliminates 95% of the cues that may cause false indications.  This training course was attended by 24 dog/handler teams representing 10 different departments.  For great images from this training and others we’ve had, please visit our Instagram page!

From NOVA:  Dogs’ sense of smell overpowers our own by orders of magnitude—it’s 10,000 to 100,000 times as acute, scientists say. “Let’s suppose they’re just 10,000 times better,” says James Walker, former director of the Sensory Research Institute at Florida State University, who, with several colleagues, came up with that jaw-dropping estimate during a rigorously designed, oft-cited study. “If you make the analogy to vision, what you and I can see at a third of a mile, a dog could see more than 3,000 miles away and still see as well.”

Everyone understands that a dog’s sense of smell is incredible, but so is their hearing and eyesight. Training is critical to ensure the use of the sense that the handler is relying on at any given time. How many times have you walked a perfectly calm dog and suddenly…. SQUIRRELL!  All dogs tend to respond to visual and audible cues which is fine unless you need them to focus on just the smell.  Can you imagine being asked to focus on a scent – when you’re surrounded by your favorite thing in the whole world – tennis balls?!

You can learn more about the amazing ability of a dog’s nose here: https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/article/dogs-sense-of-smell/