What is Scent work/Nose Work?

In Nose Work, the dog gets to use its main sense, its sense of smell. The acticity involves the dog and handler searching for specific scents in different environments. By placing the scent at different heights and in environments with varying degrees of difficulty, the dog receives both mental and physical stimulation. The sport requires neither advanced nor expensive equipment, instead it is an activity that all dogs and dog owners can engage in. The only thing needed is an interest in nose work.

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A sport inspired by professional search crews

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Nose Work is inspired by the challenges that professional search dog teams face in their daily work in, for example, customs and the police. Nose Work was founded in the USA by three professional Nose work trainers. Their goal was to give companion dogs and their owners a fun and accessible way to get active together through search work. Nose Work uses realistic search environments and can be carried out basically anywhere.​​

The origins of the sport

Nose work was founded by Ron Gaunt, Amy Herot and Jill-Marie O'Brien. The idea from the beginning was to help dogs in kennels to a more tolerable existence with activation for mental stimulation to finally be placed in homes around the United States.

Ron Gaunt has worked with service dogs and brought the idea of ​​how Nose Work should be trained from his own work with service dogs.
Ron tells us that he feels that there are many dogs who have such drive in them from natural instincts such as hunting and searching, for example, and who do not get an outlet for this and in the eyes of people are considered as not fitting in, through Nose Work is given all dogs a chance to use their natural instincts to the advantage of the people they live with and the result is a tired and satisfied dog.