opinions on dog sniffing along on casual walks?

[turney31]

Quote:
Yea, what would I know about tracking, trailing? 10+ years raising and training scent specific Bloodhounds. Donating countless said dogs to law enforcement agencys. Oh, and a couple mutts, one lab cross, just for fun. Then there is the DH who trained trackings dogs for the Texas Prison system for 24 years.
I humbly defer to your infinite knowledge of all things.

 

[welsummerchicks]

Why be so hostile and rude? I offered my opinion, and you offered yours. Mine is that I like to do obedience training and have the dog solid in that before scent training...similar to what the herding trainer taught me, 'obedience comes first'. Too, I like to teach the dog to heel in the collar, and track in the tracking harness.

Fact is, though, from your sarcasm, I have no idea as to what you disagree with. Sounds like it would be educational to find out.

Instead of sarcasm, please discuss your ideas and experience more, and I'll take notes.

That is not sarcasm about taking notes, by the way. When I find someone who obviously knows a lot about a subject, I take notes. Otherwise, I'm too old to remember it all.

 

[patandchickens]

wc, I think everyone would agree the dog needs a sound foundation of basic obedience before doing other things, it's just that not everyone has the same idea as to what exactly basic obedience involves. Showring obedience type behavior isn't the only possibility.

Anyhow...

Thanks very much everybody, I definitely got the cross-section of opinion I was hoping for

, and feel much better about the issue now! It is always uncomfortable making the shift from one paradigm or set of rules to another, and trying to understand how that maps out onto what other people do (and why) really helps me

Being as Russell is (except for getting overly wound up about people who might pet him, and he continues to improve nicely on that) quite obedient now in the literal sense of changing direction and speed on a loose leash and readily interrupting his nose-down stuff if I specifically ask for something else like heel or down, I am going to go with letting him admire the scenery nasally as well as visually as we go along, for casual walks.

This is a difficult concept for me as I am basically a horse person (you would NEVER let a ridden horse go along chronically like that on a trail ride!) and also see so many well-behaved dogs in the woods who are NOT snouting along... but it has been pointed out to me that those dogs I'm seeing happily heads-up are mainly herding and sighthound breeds (I had not realized it before, but taking inventory of the dogs that we see frequently that impress me most as cooperative walking companions, yeah, they ARE mostly those types) I am perhaps not comparing apples to apples.

So, we'll see how it goes. And thanks to this thread I have a better appreciation of who does what and why, and how it works out for them

Thanks very much,

Pat

 

[CoyoteMagic]

We were just talking about this one a Deaf Dog message board. Katie is totally deaf, has been since birth. She gets to know the world around her through scent, sight, then touch and lastly taste. It's taken a lot of training but Katie now knows 10 hand signals for "basic" obedience commands. Katie is in training to be my next Service Dog. The one thing I have to keep telling myself is that she is a DOG first, Service Dog second.

Dogs sniff, especially deaf dogs. However, I don't allow Katie to just walk around sniffing the ground and air. If we are out in public where there are people around, she is to keep her head up, walk at heel and pay attention. Paying attention is the hardest part for a 10month old puppy. Shopping is boring, watching people, especially kids is more exiciting than watching mom pick out toilet paper!! If people ask politely, we do stop and allow them to meet Katie. Not only do they learn about different types of Service Dogs, she also learns the smells and sight of different types of people. Little kids can smell sweet like candy or stink like poo! Ladies smell of all kinds of different things, sometimes too much perfume other times not enough! Same thing with guys. Different medical conditions leave people with different odors as well. Katie is being taught that when she meets people that she can sit and smell them from a distance but she is not allowed to go up and stick her nose into places and sniff. She will sit with her nose raised doing her Stevie Wonder imitation swaying back and forth while I ask the person to hold their hand out palm up for her to come over. (Katie doesn't like things coming over her head. I think she may have been hit when younger. Being she could hear the blow coming, she now ducks everytime she catches sight of something coming above her.)

When we are out on a walk, Katie is more or less allowed to do what she wants, except for pull on the leash. She can sniff to her hearts content as long as she doesn't try to pull me a long behind her. Pulling causes me to come to a complete stop and I don't start moving again until she returns to heel and sit.

I think that at 6 months, your dog keeps checking in with you, listens to when you speak to him then he is doing just fine.

 

[Hound]

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If it makes you more comfortable about Russell's leash manners, borrow a Bloodhound to take for a walk

Nose on, ears off.