A few weeks following our first March sniffing adventure on the road, I asked for permission to take the boys to the Chelsea Police Station and Chelsea Area Fire Station a second time.
And, we added a fourth Toller for this sniffing training – Aidan’s mom Phury and her owner, Sheri, who traveled to Chelsea from Shelby Township for the early morning opportunity to practice.
We began our sniff training at the Chelsea Police Station with Police Officer Tom Gilbreath assisting us a second time with new ideas about where to hide the different scents.
All four excited sniffers gleefully took on this challenge.
Phury has a lot more experience than Buzz, Aidan or Gopher, so she got to lead the way through the maze of hallways and rooms in the basement of the police station. And, we upped the ante, asking Officer Gilbreath to place the containers with the scents in both higher up as well as ground level locations.
It was interesting to note that all four dogs eventually found the hidden scents, but they did so in completely different ways. None of them systematically took us from room to room or hallway to hallway using the same paths.
Since we don’t watch each other – because we want the hide locations to be a mystery to us as well as the dogs – we discussed how the searches went, and found that the dogs caught “wind” so to speak of the different scents in the air, and we were taken to each one from different directions and in seemingly random orders.
Since there are so many factors that influence a dog’s sniffing ability, from environment, temperature, humidity, to air movement, any or all of these instances will affect how a dog determines the source of a scent.
And each of the dogs took a different route to narrow it down.
Since I’m still very green to this whole sniffing game all the variables involved in a dog’s ability to find the source of a scent is a lot more complicated than I thought it would be.
I thought, I’d hide a scent and the dog would figure it out. Well, I’m learning there’s a lot more to this and both Buzz and Aidan have very different approaches. They eventually find them but the route they take to find the source of the scent sometimes totally baffles me.
From the PD, we headed to Station 1 where we were assisted by Firefighter Ace Eder, who actually has experience with search and rescue dogs. So, the three boys, and one girl, were treated to scent hides that were on their individual levels. And even Phury, who has lots more experience at this game than the other three, found the fire station quite overwhelming.
Plus, this walking around behind the dogs on a 10-foot leash is way more tiring than one would think, and when you add in all the standing around between turns, all of us were exhausted.
So, to keep it fun, we agreed to keep this second session short.
But boy (and girl) did the Tollers have fun.
I’d also like to give a huge shout out for the assistance from the Chelsea Police Department and Chelsea Area Fire Authority for your time and patience and help. Please know that this community’s public safety officials are the best in the business and truly enjoy not only their jobs but also community involvement.
(Next up, the boys debut at a sniffing trial.)
