Winnie Nose (Knows) Memories: How It All Began
“Memory is the treasure house of the mind wherein the monuments thereof are kept and preserved.”
—Thomas Fuller
We cherish our memories. Memories of happiness and sorrow, of victory and defeat, of joyful times and heartache all stand in the continuum of our minds like books on a shelf. The covers of each book define and protect the pages upon which are written the words of that memory. As a book cover protects its stories, we protect memories by attaching them to a picture or life event kept track of on the calendar.
Taking Winnie to Nose Work Trials guarantees I create memories. When I pack, Winnie immediately knows. She sees the harness and hears the distinct jingle of the clip on her homemade lead, a 15 foot long, 1/3 inch thick cord of boat docking line with a scissor clamp knotted on the end. I can see her face light up, the inquiring twinkle in her eyes. We are going to go sniffing. When we arrive at an event, to my amazement, Winnie is instantly standing after having been resting peacefully in her crate the entire trip. It seems as if she knew where we were going all along, though she’d never been there. After we’ve set up “camp” for the day and waited for her turn to run, I see Winnie’s muscles tense with anticipation when I reach to unlatch the crate door. She knows what’s next, the fun part, the sniffing part, the reason we came. Time to make the memory.
Upon arriving at a trial site, we are checked in. The officials hold a briefing to give an overview of the searches for the day. The trial host and certifying official give us the details about the areas and boundaries within which odor will be placed. Competitors accustomed to a pre-pandemic physical walk through of the search areas can now only expect a virtual walk through. The policy change can bring angst, but in reality, even when we did the physical walk-throughs, we didn’t really know that much more. Each team must handle the search as presented and adjust on the fly. Every search is different, from one dog to the next, and even moment to moment during one dog’s search. The variables are too many to account for, the dynamics too unpredictable. Each time we go, I don’t know what to expect as no two trials are the same. I can see the venue on Google Maps, check the parking situation, and study the lay of the land, but Google Maps won’t tell me what areas we will be covering or the parameters of the search. Google Maps won’t help Winnie search for the target odor either. The unknown nature of each search is the fun of it.
The searches become the words on the pages in the book of each memory. We have pictures and videos, and when we do well, we have ribbons that become the book’s cover to protect and preserve the memory. Book by book on the shelf, together from cover to cover, our memories live. The spaces in between the books become squashed into insignificance, but the best parts of the day are not written on the pages of the memory book, nor are they the covers; they are the spaces between the book covers on our mind’s shelves. These are the parts not protected for easy recollection attached to ribbons and results. There are no pictures that capture these moments. They are the nuances we feel rather than recall, stored forever in the space between.
It is in these insignificant spaces of compressed air that lay the images of Winnie’s expressive face while I’m packing, the reminder of her intense expectation when it’s her turn to run, and the sound of her gentle snore or the look of her satisfied gaze out the window after she has sniffed. At the end of the trial, we pack up and go home, but it’s not the end of the day. As we drive, I steal many a glance back at the crate. Winnie is content, sometimes sleeping, other times gazing at the scenery out the window. Winnie always knows each time I get out her harness and sailboat cord it’ll be for nose work, but she thinks not of the next time; she doesn’t think of the future.
Simple Definitions
If you look for the definition of a scent work dog, you will not find Winnie, but she is the description. You can look up detection dog or sniffer dog and you will get a general explanation of what the dog does, but you won’t get a depiction of Winnie. Winnie is the description because Winnie is simply a dog. She has a nose. That is the only requirement which makes her the perfect example of a nose work dog.
In the beginning I did not set out to do nose work with my dog. I didn’t even know nose work existed. But now I can’t tell you what nose work means to me. I never could have imagined how much a canine performance sport would change my life. From opening paths for travel opportunities to forming human connections and bonds. From building friendships through shared experiences to now writing it all down.
If you google Nose Work, or Scent Work, as it has also come to be known as, you can see it described by Wikipedia as thus:
Nosework (aka scent work or scent detection) is a dog sport created to mimic professional detection dog tasks. One dog and one handler form a team. The dog must find a hidden target odor, often ignoring distractors (such as food or toys) and alert the handler. After the dog finds the odor, they are rewarded with food or a toy.
This simple definition of nose work doesn’t even touch the surface of what it really is. As a sport or pastime, nose work is exciting and engaging. Competing can bring you thrilling challenges and unexpected opportunities to take your dogs to unusual places. Nose work can also be more of a joyous and enlightening experience for those who don’t get too involved competitively. I am not competitive by nature, but I turned my lack of competitiveness into a self-starting endeavor. Because of nose work, I overcame my fear of traveling alone and took road trips near and far, just me and my dog.
Every new adventure begins with the first step but for my adventure, nose work was not the first step. First came a dog, Winnie. Winnie came to us in the most unconventional way—by plane. But Winnie’s trip to us was most unusual not because she was on a plane but because we had never seen her in person. I had chosen Winnie from a 20 second video the breeder had sent to me. She was the puppy in the back of the pack of six little puppy-larvae pushing and falling over each other for attention. I had said I wanted the runt of the litter, the smaller one with the mellow personality. The breeder sent still shots of the puppy she thought I was describing, and I am certain still she got the one I chose.
At the tender age of nine weeks, Winnie was on a plane that whisked her high above the mountains, valleys, and plains from Texas to California to begin her life with us. Ripped away from her littermates in the middle of the night, packed safely in a crate with water and instructions, a tiny five-pound puppy couldn’t have imagined what was happening. When the cargo and freight staff member at the airport handed my husband, Mike, and I the crate, with trepidation we opened the crate door, and nothing had prepared us for who we saw. There were no wings on the angel who had just flown in from Texas, but her sweet eyes that were curious and bold and only a little frightened held us mesmerized, casting a spell we remain under to this day.
Shirts with Words
For the vast and varied list of careers I’ve chosen throughout my life, I have almost always had to wear a uniform. A logo or company name splashed across the sleeve of my shirt or jacket when I was a letter carrier for the USPS. A label on the right or left side of the chest like my bus operator uniform. It sounds boring to the more fashion-minded folks, but I didn’t hate it. It was comfortable and practical. I liked not having to decide what to wear every single day of the week.
When I made a living wearing clothing with words, however, I had no choice. I made it a rule when I was not on duty to wear clothes with no logos, no brands, no clever messages sprawled across them. It’s funny now because that is practically all I wear—clothing with something written on it. I still think it’s a chore to decide what to wear. I still have logos and company names written on my still comfortable and practical clothing. But my retirement uniform is anything but boring—tee shirts in a rainbow of color choices with dog training facilities advertised on them. Shirts from nose work events and seminars I have attended. Hoodies about nose work, polar fleece vests I got for participating in nose work camps and training seminars. And mostly tee shirts created by a company called Teddy the Dog.
Teddy the Dog makes a variety of canine-themed products, but tee shirts are their specialty. Each has a creative cartoon of the mascot, Teddy, and other dogs doing something cute, captioned with a pun or play on words. These tee shirts are so much fun to collect and wear. A dog in a boat and the shirt says, “Lake my day.” They even have specific dog breed–themed tees. A group of cartoon terriers with the phrase, “The more the Terrier.” Three labradors above the word “LAB-Adore.” Then there’s the one I’m wearing as I write, a cartoon Teddy, nose to the ground, tail swinging over the words “Nose it all.”
Imagine my surprise when I realized that even in retirement, I still wear a uniform. It turns out old habits die hard. Since I became interested in nose work, Teddy shirts are my primary uniform. I spend almost every day doing something that has to do with nose work, so I am delighted to report that nose work and scent work are rapidly rising themes in popular Teddy the Dog subjects. I bet I have every design of nose work–themed Teddy the Dog shirts so far. It was one of these shirts that inspired a conversation one day with a former co-worker.
I’d been invited to lunch by a friend I hadn’t seen since she retired a few years prior. We had some catching up to do. “How have you been? Are you finally doing the traveling you dreamed of? How are the grandkids?” We chatted. After a while, my friend asked, “What does your shirt mean?” I looked down and saw I was wearing my blue shirt with the red and black Camp Colorado design that said, “Dogs Smell Better Up Here.” She had unwittingly hit upon a subject of which I am never at a loss for words. I can talk for hours about nose work and never run out of material. I lose myself in the subject and my listeners seem interested. Sometimes I start with a brief history of the scent work hobby.
At the surface level, there is a lot to say about nose work to pique the interest of everyone. Nose work as a performance sport and as a hobby is relatively new, having only started in the 2000s. Designed to mimic what dogs do in the detection profession, nose work is for serious training and for hobby. Nose work is fast becoming one of the most popular K9 performance sports. A popular sport among dog lovers, from family pet owners to professional breeders, nose work has something for everyone.
A Group of Colleagues
In the beginning, nose work was not even considered a canine performance sport but a canine enrichment activity. It was conceptualized by professional trainers Ron Gaunt, Amy Herot, and Jill Marie O’Brien in 2006. Together they hoped for the dogs who had retired from a career in detection to have as an activity some detection games to play. Ron, Amy, and Jill recognized how all dogs love to sniff and working dogs still wanted to work even after retirement. From there, they also included dogs which went through training for jobs in the K9 Detection industry, but for various reasons did not go on to a career. They wanted to give these dogs this activity beyond the jobs for which they had been training.
While the development of nose work as an activity continued, the founders thought about bringing this activity to the public as training for anyone seeking to enrich the dog-human bond. Soon people with retired service dogs became interested, and this opened up the idea for folks with dogs who had retired from canine performance sports like agility, tracking, and field trailing. As interest spread, nose work went from being a game of hide-and-seek—“Find my keys, find me”—to the pursuit of a specific smell. By 2007, they had incorporated target odors. The more attention from other people in various backgrounds of the dog industry came into the fold, the more the science of canine olfactory system became a consideration.
By 2008, Amy, Ron, and Jill Marie realized that a consistent standard might be helpful, so they planned a certified trainer program to furthering the capacity for education of the many people interested in playing. This certified training program teaches techniques and methods as approved by the founders based on their backgrounds in the professional dog training industry and their desire to honor the dog. With the development of this training program, the founders created the National Association of Canine Scent Work (NACSW).
NACSW staff continue learning about dogs and odor and constantly add to the training program and trainers must continue their education in order to stay certified. To this day, the Trainer Certification Program is unique to NACSW and is a premiere aspect of the organization. Many trainers have used the training program, giving the sport a desirable consistency and the promise to grow even better.
When I found nose work I found so much more than just an activity to do with my dog; I discovered a channel wherein I could give my dog an opportunity to do what dogs love most and join her in the experience. In participating, I brought nose work to Winnie as enrichment and ended up enhancing my own life by building the greatest bond between us.
Chaotic Blend
“A mess of beautiful contradictions make her whole.”
— Nikita Gill
Winnie has been my most challenging dog to manage with her stubborn streak and sharp aptitude, coupled with her noble charm and mischievousness. Being a puggle, she is a blend of beagle and pug as far as ancestry, but nothing about her personality blends the two very diverse breeds. Winnie seamlessly displays affection and loyalty, the pug and beagle characteristics shared by the two breeds, but is in constant contradiction and toggles before your eyes back and forth between the characteristics that are purely beagle and purely pug.
I always think of stubborn as understanding what’s being asked, but choosing a different option, like my dachshund, Juniper, who would hear me say, “Sit,” but I could tell he was thinking, “Yeah, I hear you but, no. I want to go over there instead.” His stubbornness kicked in when I insisted on what I wanted and prevented him from doing what he wanted. That’s when I got the shut-out. He refused to sit. Looked me straight in the eye and just refused.
With Winnie, she goes through the first steps much like a dachshund or a beagle would do but, then she switches to pug mode and says, “Aw, c’mon. Really? You want me to sit?” Then she gets silly and playful. She does the zoomies or something else entertaining, very much like a pug. Then she and I both forget about what I was asking for and laugh.
Our morning routine is heading out to the corral to tend to the mini horse, Mali. While out there, Winnie does her morning duties and indulges in a pre-breakfast snack of fresh dung before sprinting back into the house for proper breakfast. The promise of breakfast has always been the incentive to get Winnie back inside instead of peeling off up the driveway following a critter scent trail.
Of course, there have always been the occasional mornings where the incentive didn’t work in which case I would walk up the driveway ’til I caught up with her and when she would pause for a moment from whatever interesting smell she was puzzling over, I’d say with a playful tone while running back toward the house, “C’mon, Winnie.” Winnie would then chase me, and we would run together inside, refreshed and invigorated and on the same team.
When Winnie began peeling off every morning, I had to change things up. I began leashing her up for the walk to and from the corral, but that was not part of her plan. Oh, the dejected look when she realized the effects of my plan. She countered with a “can’t catch me” game in the corral when I tried next time to leash her up for the walk back to the house. I couldn’t even get mad or frustrated. She is so funny. Toggling back into entertaining pug, Winnie’s game was my morning cup of joy. And when after a little play, I’d leash her up, we’d go inside happy and satisfied, together again on the same page.
One morning as we went through the ritual, and got to the last stage, I reached out to leash her but the look on her face actually broke my heart. She was telling me she understood this time what was happening. This time the pug in her didn’t want to be entertaining. Instead, she was insulted. She humbly showed her downheartedness. I felt like a cruel and manipulative person playing with and breaking her spirit. I reached out, picked her up to console her and let her walk beside me unleashed to the house where we celebrated and had an excellent breakfast.
In retrospect, I realize what went down differently that morning. I was being stern and insistent with the beagle, who then switched into pug and instead of becoming an entertainer, she grew sensitive and got her feelings hurt. Winnie surprised me and again taught me another lesson; always respect every aspect of her diverse and contradicting characteristics. In my heart, my intentions must come with mutual love and unconditional devotion.
The Group Gets Organized
In 2009, nose work became a sport. The NACSW had become an official organization and began holding sanctioned trials in Southern California. The following year, nose work spread with its first trial outside the Southern California area to Santa Rosa, California. By this time, the sport had developed two levels of competition—Nose Work 1 (NW1) and Nose Work 2 (NW2). NW2 was created for dogs who have mastered the skills needed for NW1. At each level, they divided the searches into four areas referred to as elements—interior, exterior, vehicles, and container searches. Because of the popularity of the sport and the number of NACSW certified trainers offering lessons and classes, the talent and skill which these teams were capable of continued to increase. Soon another level of competition was added—Nose Work 3 (NW3). To prove they mastered the skills at this level, dogs are required to earn three titles in order to move on to the final level—Elite. With much input from many members and certified trainers, the evolution of the sport continued when they realized the need for another division for all the dogs who had moved up the three NW levels to Elite status.
In 2015, the Elite division was formed. Elite searches differ from NW searches as far as there are no specific elements. Searches can incorporate any area and any elements. Considered to be the pinnacle of achievement, the Elite level's point system allows for dogs at any level to participate while honing their skills on their way to earning an Elite Champion title with 1,000 points. The founders feel this division more accurately represents their original vision, a forum to test the dogs’ skills and handlers’ abilities in the most dynamic and exciting of ways. As the list of dogs earning their Elite Champion title and completing the Elite level grew, once again with the input of the many certified instructors, the Summit Division was born. After a team has earned the points to achieve Elite Champion status, they can continue to be challenged in endurance, stamina, bravery, and skills at the Summit level.
With still much to say about just the history of nose work, I usually stop talking so as not to monopolize the conversation. I know there will be other opportunities to tell people about my hobby. Once while walking Winnie in the park, a fellow walker we’d see frequently came toward us with her poodle mix. Because our dogs were familiar with each other, we usually stopped to say hello. I was wearing my “Scent-athlon” tee shirt, a colorful shirt I got from participating in an online virtual skills challenge. This acquaintance from the park asked about the event advertised on the shirt and after I explained a little general information she asked, “How did you get into that sport?”
American Kennel Club (AKC) Joins the Party
I am no stranger to hard work, and persistence comes naturally. Like Winnie, I am stubborn, and when I decide to do something, if anything stands in the way, I try harder. When I began looking for information on nose work, I found very little. I tried to use the Internet but nothing invited me in. When you don’t even know what you don’t know, it’s hard to know when you’ve found it. I became desperate when I hit dead end after dead end. I would later find that I wasn’t looking in the right places.
Though not the case a few years ago, getting started now can be as easy as turning on the computer and typing in “Nose Work for Dogs” or “K9 Scent Work.” You will no doubt get many links to trainers and training facilities and if you add your city or county, it may direct you to a website for trainers in your area. The sport has grown so rapidly and in the last three years there is even a Wikipedia entry to K9 scent work sport with some general descriptions and information. You will also have easy access to links to AKC and NACSW which are the two biggest organizations promoting the sport and the ones I am familiar with. Both the AKC and NACSW websites are a bottomless well of information I recommend exploring one bucket full at a time.
AKC comes first alphabetically, but they were not the first to do scent work. That distinguishing designation goes to NACSW, which began forming over ten years before AKC’s first Scent Work Trial in September 2017. Being an organization of very broad scope, AKC is a great place to get your feet wet. They offer instructions to an exercise you can do at home using things you already have to introduce your dog to the scent work sport. I recommend you check out as much information as you can digest about the sport with both the AKC and NACSW websites. When you are ready, use their instructions on how to introduce your dog to the concept of sniffing for odor. You will want to pay close attention to the “Prep the Odor and Scent Vessel” section on handling the target odor oil. We want you to avoid accidentally spreading the odor anywhere else in the environment. The odor should be “novel” so the dog will be drawn to the scent vessel and not become distracted by residual smells of target odor (birch essential oil) anywhere else. AKC also offers some training tips, and the website will give you links where you can search for dog training facilities in your area that offer scent work. If you are considering introducing your dog to the game yourself, keep in mind that the introduction to the sport is the most critical part of your dog’s training. Introducing the dog to odor in the beginning creates the foundation that you and your dog will be on for the rest of your sniffing career.
I’m not trying to make it sound serious, but it is. We base everything we do in nose work on canine behavior and everything the dog does is a behavior. In teaching the sport, we read the behaviors that tell us the dog is (1) searching for an odor to source, (2) sourcing an odor they find interesting, and (3) is at the source they were searching. During that time, the dog is also sniffing, seeing, and hearing every other thing happening. Winnie’s first experience was at the canine activity club with a former law enforcement canine handler. His introduction to sniffing was to place three over-turned bowls on the training floor with a treat under them. The handler was instructed to bring the dog in and let the dog find the treats under the bowls. The instructor didn’t give any other instructions and with Winnie’s enthusiasm came the behavior to paw at and flip the bowl to get the treat. I allowed Winnie to overturn the bowl and then gave her a treat. As far as Winnie is concerned, I was rewarding the pawing behavior. To this day it is a struggle for me to keep Winnie from pawing at source and we have suffered faults at trials. That is the consequence of rewarding an unintended behavior. Had the K9 Activity Club instructor coached me to give Winnie a treat from my hand as soon as she got to the bowl with the treat under it and before she even raised her paw to overturn it, I wouldn’t have rewarded the behavior that is now so ingrained in Winnie. That being said, I cannot stress more emphatically the importance of the proper training during introduction and if you are thinking of experiencing the sport deeper than the surface, I recommend exploring NACSW.
NACSW are the inventors of the sport of canine sniffing. The three founders of this organization all had extensive careers in the professional world of K9 detection. When Ron, Amy, and Jill first came together to discuss their ideas of taking detection concepts from the professional world and bringing them to the average pet owner’s level, they probably never dreamed it would have caught on the way it did. In creating the NACSW organization, the nose work hobby was born. They are still setting the standards for all other organizations to follow to this day. Because NACSW is solely focused on nose work, their mission statement reads:
To create opportunities for dogs to develop their natural scenting abilities, and to conduct competition design and trial sanctioning, official instructor certification, and education in an ethical, enriching canine-centered environment.
I feel they are a superb choice to reach out to first or at some point early in your nose work career. They offer videos introducing the sport, and you can purchase videos showing actual canine searches in competition. NACSW has a very thorough certification program, Certified Nose Work Instructor (CNWI) for trainers and requires ongoing education provided by the founders and other highly skilled professionals within their education division. The Education Program is where to look for a trainer and, because of their standards, I feel confident in recommending any of their CNWI instructors from the list of certified trainers on the NACSW website.
The conversation with the lady in the park doesn’t get this involved, but with friends, it can. After telling my friends all about NACSW Nose Work and AKC Scent Work and answering some more questions, this is sometimes where the conversation ends. Either we’ve run out of time, or they’ve run out of interest. But because nose work is now such a big part of my life, I will revisit the subject with the friends I spend time with. I was once asked, “How did you know Winnie could do nose work?”
