Epsilon Archive for Student Projects

Abstract

Dogs are known for their well-developed sense of smell, which is their most important sense. They use their sense of smell to absorb information from their surroundings and communicate with other dogs. It is important for the dogs’ welfare that they have an outlet for their sniffing behaviour. Dogs have long been used by human to track down various substances, and there is a great deal of variation in how scent work can be applied. One of these methods is Nose Work, where the dog is trained to search for and mark specific scents. The dog learns this by starting to associate the scent itself with some type of reward. This study aimed to investigate whether there are any differences between two different learning methods for Nose Work, both in terms of accuracy of the scent and differences in subsequent behaviour.
The learning methods tested in this study were “smeller” and “pairing”. Twelve dogs were divided into two groups; each group being initially trained using one of the methods. After each training session, the dogs were filmed in their home boxes to see what their subsequent behaviour looked like. At the end of the training period, ten blind searches were performed per dog where the number of correct markings was noted.
The study was carried out at a dog shelter with dogs waiting for their new homes. There are many dogs that are negatively affected by living in such environments and may develop behavioural problems as a result, which in turn make them more difficult to rehome. Therefore, it is important that these dogs receive the best possible welfare and are given opportunitets to express their natural behaviours. What can be difficult in dog kennels is the large number of dogs and the small number of staff. This leads to a limited amount of time that can be spent on each dog.
The results of this study showed that there is no significant difference in accuracy between the two learning methods. Nor was there any major difference between the dogs' subsequent behaviours. This type of study can provide a good overview of how staff can best optimize the time they have for each dog through effective training methods.