Nose Work/Ratting Class
We offer both Ratting and general Nose Work for fun classes.
RATTING - In this class your dog will try their nose out finding a real rat in a tube. The rat maybe hidden in a bale of hay or boxes and other items in a room. This is a great way to challenge your dog and their instincts with a real rat. The rats are not harmed because they are in a regulation tube like housing. The dogs simply use their nose to locate the rat. There are many sports surrounding dogs finding rats. Earth Dog, Barn Hunt and Happy Ratters are the most popular. In Earthdog, small and short legged dogs search for rats hidden in tunnels in the ground. Then Barn Hunt was developed to accommodate dogs of all sizes where dogs find rats hidden in bales of hay. Next a new spin off to the ratting world, Happy Ratters was developed. Happy Ratters can take place in any indoor or outside environment. Here the tunnels and hay bales are skipped. Rats in tubes are hidden in trash, boxes or other obstacles much like a messy abandoned house or alley way. In our class we will give your dog a start in the sport of Ratting by hiding the rats and teaching your dog to seek them out.. If your dog takes an interest and you would like to further their skills, we will send you in the right direction for any one of these sports.
Nose Work -Fascinating fact: Dogs have a sense of smell that’s between 10,000 and 100,000 times more acute than ours! The sport of Scent Work celebrates the joy of sniffing, and asks a dog to sniff to their heart’s content; turning your dog’s favorite activity into a rewarding game. It is a terrific sport for all kinds of dogs, and is a wonderful way to build confidence in a shy dog.
In so many dog sports the handler is in control but this isn’t true in Scent Work. Neither the dog nor handler knows where the target odor is hidden. The handler has to rely on the dog, and follow the dog’s nose to success. In Scent Work, it is the canine who is the star of the show.
The sport of Scent Work is based on the work of professional detection dogs (such as drug dogs), employed by humans to detect a wide variety of scents and substances. In AKC Scent Work, dogs search for cotton swabs saturated with the essential oils of Birch, Anise, Clove, and Cypress. The cotton swabs are hidden out of sight in a pre-determined search area, and the dog has to find them. Teamwork is necessary: when the dog finds the scent, he has to communicate the find to the handler, who calls it out to the judge.