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Benefits of Scent Work for HUMANS!

Writer's picture: Eliese, Owner of Sits n WigglesEliese, Owner of Sits n Wiggles

In my last post, I wrote all about the benefits of scentwork for dogs, but what are the benefits for us?

 

Let’s start with the obvious; it’s quite simply a brilliant bonding activity we can do with our dogs. There is plenty of research to suggest that interacting with our dogs increases production of happy hormones such as oxytocin, serotonin, dopamine and endorphins. All of these chemicals make us feel happier, and have plenty of other health benefits. It’s worth noting, that this goes both ways. Spending time with us increases our dog’s production of these chemicals too so it is mutually beneficial. What better way to spend time with your dog than working as a little happy hormone boosting team?!

 

Not only does scent work improve the relationship we have with our dogs, it also has many practical benefits to humans, some well known and some lesser.

 

We are all aware of the wonderful work that dogs do in various public services. There are police dogs who use their incredible sense of smell to search for tiny traces of explosives, drugs, and other substances, or search for missing people or human remains. Without the work of these dogs, often explosives would go undetected, and bodies of missing people may never be found. There are mountain rescue dogs, who use the same techniques we use in trailing (more on that here!!) to find people who have gone missing on mountains and are incredibly effective at doing so. There are also dogs who work in searches after natural distastes such as earthquakes to find missing people. During the coronavirus pandemic, there were even dogs being used to detect COVID-19 in airports in Finland, with accuracy levels higher than the tests themselves. All of these dogs are specially trained to use their noses to carry out their jobs; something we as humans are just not capable to doing.

 

On top of the dogs working in public services, there are also assistance dogs who can be trained to detect a drop in a diabetics blood sugar before they become aware of it, or detect an epileptic fit before if happens, all through detecting minor changes in the scents the human gives off. There are also ongoing studies into cancer detection, which could result in dogs detecting cancer way before we are able to with our current techniques, including breast and lung cancer by simply smelling the breath of the patient.


All this said, if you'd like to find out what YOUR dog can do with their fantastic nose, see my booking page for scent work classes in Glasgow!

 


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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