mbc1963 Posted June 15, 2007 Report Share Posted June 15, 2007 This morning, my dog was poking with great attention around the edge of this little mucky pond near my house. He was sniffing every millimeter of shoreline. After maybe 5 minutes of meticulous sniffing, he stuck his head into the water, and pulled out a bone that had sunk to the bottom. This bone was immersed in at least 8 inches of water, and was about a foot offshore. Do all dogs have such an acute sense of smell? I've had dogs in the past, and I don't think they could scent through water. I was impressed with Buddy's ability. He does love to scent things out - his favorite game is "hide and squeak," in which I hide his squeaker toy somewhere and he has to sniff it out. I'm wishing we had tracking clubs near me. Mary Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zoe Posted June 15, 2007 Report Share Posted June 15, 2007 SAR dogs are taken out on boats to search for people - who may be in the river/lake etc. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Beth G Posted June 15, 2007 Report Share Posted June 15, 2007 Oh yeah. I saw on TV that some breeds of dogs can smell a drop of blood in hundreds- if not thousands- of gallons of water! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SoloRiver Posted June 15, 2007 Report Share Posted June 15, 2007 Solo's sense of smell seems terrible. He seems to use his eyes rather than his nose when searching for something. In Philadelphia, where unlike San Francisco it snows in winter, we would regularly lose racquetballs in the snow and Solo could NEVER find them. To me, racquetballs have a noticeable rubbery smell, that one would think would be pretty strong to a dog, but usually I'd have to find the balls if we were ever going to get them back. Granted, it's harder to smell things in the cold (right?), but... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alaska Posted June 15, 2007 Report Share Posted June 15, 2007 I have one BC that locates stationary objects on the ground mostly by sight, and one who locates them mostly by smell. It's quite interesting to watch them both searching for the same object (e.g. a lost ball). I can usually predict who will find it first, based on how well it stands out against the background it's lying on. If it stands out reasonably well, the sight dog will always get it, but if it's hidden, the nose dog will. They both seem to detect moving objects equally well. The sight dog, however, spends a lot of time air-scenting (nose lifted in the air), and seems quite good at detecting things well out of sight in the far distance that way (mainly wild animals, much to my dismay). Mary: Decaying things underwater give off little bubbles of (scented) air that rise to the surface and are pretty easy for a dog's nose to detect. Don't know how old your bone was, but that's how SAR dogs find dead people underwater. A SAR guy explained it to me thus: "Imagine when you f*rt in a bathtub...." BTW, you don't need a tracking club to get started. Tracking is a relatively easy thing to train on your own, and cheap (though you do need someplace suitable to lay practice tracks). This is a great book to use: Enthusiastic Tracking: A Step By Step Training Handbook Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
borderlicious Posted June 15, 2007 Report Share Posted June 15, 2007 One of my dogs locates things solely by smell. If he can't smell it, then it had better be right in front of him at eye level because otherwise he'll pass right by what he's looking for. For such a tiny dog, he has a great sense of smell. It's a pain at times, because no matter where we hide his obsession (a miniature red tennis ball that is supremely superior to the green ones that came in the same package), he'll find it and scream until he gets it. I digress. What I was going to say is that this little dog does the same thing - I can drop a pebble in our pool and he will be able to locate it and dive for it. The border collies seem to find things by sight. Using the pool as an example, if I throw a sinking toy in, they will look around for it and won't make a move until they spot it. If they can't see it, they just fuss. It doesn't seem to occur to them to use their noses, maybe because I've never asked them to. Everything they've done has relied more on sight than smell. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Beth G Posted June 15, 2007 Report Share Posted June 15, 2007 When I throw the ball using the chuck it, my dogs often have to locate it by smell, if they fail to see where it landed. I just tell them to find the ball and they run around looking like bloodhounds, sniffing around in ever widening circles until they find the ball. It's funny to see. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mbc1963 Posted June 16, 2007 Author Report Share Posted June 16, 2007 BTW, you don't need a tracking club to get started. Tracking is a relatively easy thing to train on your own, and cheap (though you do need someplace suitable to lay practice tracks). This is a great book to use: Enthusiastic Tracking: A Step By Step Training Handbook Great! Thanks for the information. I'll look for it. Interesting how dogs are so different from each other, especially in something as general as sense of smell! Mary Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WyoBC Posted June 16, 2007 Report Share Posted June 16, 2007 I'm still working on Black Jack's sense of smell. Right now he has a hard time finding his bone two feet away. But he is getting better with some smelling training It is funny to see him try to find the ball when the inexperinced ball thrower (me) get the ball in tall grass and it's up to him to find it. But there are balls everwhere outside that he forgets about. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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