r/nosework

Hello
I’m a fairly experienced dog trainer, mostly clicker based looking for things to do with my giant breed that can’t do my other sports. I hate obedience and he’s too big for agility IMO.

So, we want to try scent work. The local class has a one year waiting list and I have a breed that dies between six and 10 so I’d like to get started sooner than that.

I’m looking for recommendations for a program to get started with scent work. Online is cool. Written is cool.

I really want to get into bite work or scent work I don’t know if it would be good for both but I definitely want to at least take part in one. The problem is I have a bullmastiff and is quite stubborn and huge to lug around everywhere, I was thinking of just getting a pit-bull as well to run with etc so my big question is would a pit do good with nose work? I know they do well in bite work but I’ve been leaning towards nose work and just have a love for pitbulls and don’t know if they are the best for nose work.
(Edit )Everyone was very helpful in the comments thank you !

Ok, Slappy the lab and I have been doing this for two months now. He's pretty good at it. When we visit friends I hand his odor can to someone and tell them to hide it and he can sniff it out in like two minutes or less almost every time. Even if it's somewhere weird like in the oven or someone's pocket.

So it's a cool party trick. But...that's it. Even if he does it five times in a row, it's just a quick little cool thing he can do. Like I can balance a chair on my chin, that's a cool party trick too. But I'm not tired or anything afterwards.

In the last two months I have seen people recommend nosework for basically everything. Got a hyper dog? Nervous dog? Aggressive dog? Reactive dog? Does your dog have too much energy? Does your dog need a job where they can really use their brain? Nosework supposed to help with anxiety and reactivity and being destructive in the house. It's great for dogs that got hurt and need to rest but are bored because they have to rest. If your dog is reactive and gets too worked up on walks then instead of going on walks you should just stay home and do nosework instead and that will be way better for him.

And I just don't get it. It takes him less than two minutes to find the thing even in an apartment where he's never been before. It seems like the level of difficulty of playing a game of tic-tac-toe. I'll play that to pass the time and it will work my brain a little, but working my brain a little for 90 seconds isn't anything like taking a hike or playing a game of ultimate frisbee or building a Lego set or doing an actual job.

I get that people do competitions for this and that's why their so crazy about it. I just feel like it's way oversold to the uninitiated. I'm not seeing the "ultimate brainwork" aspect, at least on my dog.

Complete noob here with a question about practice sessions at home. I am in a beginner nosework class (the instructors are NACSW if that matters) and I am having a ton of fun, but I have a lot of questions. We are still quite early on and learning the fundamentals, we *just* got birch samples to start introducing a couple of days ago.

I am curious how we should go about "ending" a session? For example at home we typically do two or three searches with 2-5 hides per search. Obviously I know how many hides there are and when she is done, and at that point I am ready to set up the next search. So I've been just indirectly indicating to her we're done with the search, and I am wondering if there is a better way to handle this part. I'm also curious what this typically looks like in trials. Does the dog normally indicate somehow there are no more hides? Do the judges tell you when you are done?

I'm not sure if I want to compete since I am mostly doing this for fun and to kill some time, but I would like to know the "correct" way to go about this particular nuance in case I ever decide I wanna do trails. Any info would be greatly appreciated!

EDIT: I appreciate all the tips! To clarify, I'm asking about how to know when she is done or if I should be the one telling her she is done, not what to do when we are done. I definitely make it a big happy celebration when she finds all of the hides!

Just looking for other people's experiences going up levels in NACSW.

Raven got her NW1 last weekend. Yesterday she finished her Detective Dog Novice title in USCSS. So she's got a good start.

Raven had some very good searches and I'm impressed. But she was solidly mid pack in terms of times.

It seems like a lot of people are moving right to NW2. The host of the NW1 is holding a trial in August and I know some NW1 people from the trial last week are planning to enter.

In my head I was thinking we would no way be ready that son. She has so much more work to get solid, confident, committed. The timing to me really indicates that. I have more to do to learn to read her and support her.

In my head I was thinking maybe in a year we would try for the next level.

I guess it's the natural progression but how fast did you move from one level to the next and how did you decide the dog was ready, or you were ready?