The part of your dog that never switches off.
Scent detection courses and an ongoing membership, for dogs who need a job and owners who want something to do together.
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Why scent detection
The dog’s nose knows best. It is not a nice extra. It is the main way they understand the world, and for most pet dogs it goes almost completely unused.
Give a dog something real to search for and two things happen. They get tired in the way that actually counts, mentally rather than just physically. And they get to be good at something, which does more for a nervous or frustrated dog than any amount of walking.
It works for any breed and any age. It works for older dogs, for dogs on restricted exercise, and for owners who are not built for running about a field.
The courses
There are three, and they run in order. Each one builds on the last. You start with a dog who has never searched for anything in their life and you finish with one working properly, in new places, on real searches.
Constable
Where everybody starts. Your dog learns that finding a scent is the game, and you learn how to read them while they do it.
- Your dog learns to identify an odour
- Your dog learns to indicate when they find it
- You learn systematic search techniques
Detective
The searches get harder, the environments change, and your dog starts working things out for themselves rather than waiting to be shown.
- Developing a strong indication
- Increasing the search area
- Handler and dog working methods for different searches
Inspector
Real searching. New places, harder hides, and a dog you can genuinely trust to tell you when they have found something.
- Working with environmental factors
- Introducing new odours
Groups are kept small on purpose. You get taught, not just supervised.
The membership
The Canine Detection Academy
What happens when the course ends.
This is the bit people do not see coming.
You finish the courses, and by then your dog is working well. You have finally found the thing that gives them real fulfilment, the thing they come alive for. And then it stops.
You are back at home with a dog who is bored again by the middle of the week, no group to train with, and nowhere to take any of it.
The membership is the answer to that. It is where you go next.
What the membership includes
- Regular in person sessions, in the same group, so you keep building instead of starting again
- Access to online material to work through between sessions
- Specialist search days, in locations you would not get access to on your own
- A private group for members, with extra material and first refusal on sessions
- Access to club merchandise
- A route into trials and competition if that is where you want to take it, and no pressure at all if it is not