Let ’em Sniff!

Imagine yourself as a child, and you get to go to Disneyland. Amazing! Awesome! You’re absolutely beside yourself, and you can’t wait to go on the rides and see all of your favourite characters. But, mom and dad need to make this trip quick, so they blindfold you to avoid distractions, and before you know it you’re back at home and you’ve missed out. How frustrating!

Now picture your dog when you say, “wanna go for walk?” Amazing! Awesome! She’s absolutely beside herself. But, you need to make this a quick walk, yet again. But you’re not blindfolding her, its worse; you won’t let her sniff anything. A dog’s nose, depending on the breed, is tens of thousands of times better than ours, making it their primary sense. To a dog, the scent on that tree trunk is an email from a friend who lives a street over, and the fence over there reveals today’s biggest headline: Max, chocolate lab, sprayed by skunk. How frustrating for a dog to get a sniff of Max in the air, but not be able to go read the rest of the headline. “Wait! What happened to Max last night?!”

A dog’s favourite part of the day are walks, right up there with dinner time. Try to set a leisurely pace on one of your daily walks, or let your dog set the pace. You don’t have to go far, your dog will cover plenty of distance going back and forth and in circles, exploring with their best sense!