There exists a world of opportunities in the days immediately before and after a given trial. What we choose to do with our dogs during these days can have an immense impact on our performance on trial day or how we rebound afterwards. In this episode, we discuss some of the things to consider when deciding what to do before and after trial. This is an enormous topic, so this discussion is more geared toward getting everyone thinking. We have some exciting resources coming up that we think will ...
Jul 15, 2025•36 min•Ep. 132
Consequences are all bad things, right? Not necessarily. When training, consequences are merely results, not inherently good or bad. By embracing the concept of consequences, we can make more informed decisions of what we will train, when and how. We discuss ways we can do just that in this podcast episode. Additionally, Dianna mentions Judith Guthrie and Michele Ellertson, both of whom are excellent instructors and trainers. Be certain to check out their extensive library of offerings through S...
Jul 05, 2025•30 min•Ep. 131
Each of us have certain "hats" we wear pertaining to Scent Work. Dog owner. Handler. Competitor. Instructor. Trial official. Trial host. Volunteer. Each "hat" brings with it unique experiences, viewpoints and biases. We can broaden our experiences, push passed blind spots and deficiencies by attempting to experience as many viewpoints as possible. Own a super fast moving dog? Borrowing a classmate's more methodical dog for a class or two to see what that is like, what skills you are missing and ...
Jun 22, 2025•32 min•Ep. 130
Training Scent Work offers us a multitude of choices. What training approach, school of thought or tools will we use? Each of us has our own preferences. However, this sometimes leads us to label the options we discarded, or chose to pass by, as "BAD". In this wide-ranging episode, we dive into why this happens and how it can be an issue. Instead, the argument is made that we should learn as much as possible, recognize the effectiveness of all the various options, when best to use them and ask e...
Jun 06, 2025•46 min•Ep. 129
Choosing to trial with our dogs requires that we ask some questions. Would trialing be the best thing for us, our dogs and our team, right now, at this point in time? The answers will differ from team-to-team, but the act of the purposefully practicing honest advocacy is something everyone participating in Scent Work should do. This approach allows us to better determine which paths or decisions will work best for ourselves as handlers and our team as a whole. This is a necessary process, regard...
May 26, 2025•38 min•Ep. 128
When tackling your searches, are you keeping your dog's perspective in mind? Meaning, how they are perceiving the space or environment? Doing so can be harder than it sounds, since we as people are oftentimes desensitized to the normal happenings of a human world. Yet these may be the very things which make a search exponentially more challenging for our dogs. In this episode, we discuss the importance of viewing our searches from our dog's perspective and ways we can better practice this essent...
Mar 07, 2025•26 min•Ep. 127
Do you feel as though you are running at top speed on a hamster wheel and unable to get off? There are many of us in the sniffing community that may feel this way! Handlers who are doing all of the things all of the time, running themselves, and their dogs, ragged. Trial hosts, who after spending months working tirelessly to prep for an event, find themselves receiving requests to host even more events before the current one is wrapped up. Trial officials crisscrossing the country, officiating e...
Feb 28, 2025•35 min•Ep. 126
When it comes to trialing in Scent Work within the United States, there many competition organizations to choose from. This variety grants us an incredible opportunity: to be strategic. This is true for new and seasoned competitors alike. We can more fully realize the potential of mindfully leveraging our choices, deciding which organization we compete with, when and why and even carefully choosing which classes we sign up for. In this episode, we highlight how being more strategic and more goal...
Feb 24, 2025•18 min•Ep. 125
Why are we doing Scent Work in the first place? What drew us to this activity? We are all so incredibly busy, stretched ridiculously thin, constantly rushing from one thing to next. Why then are we still squeezing searching into our already jam-packed calendars? Is it really all about the titles or ribbons? Or is it something else? Could it be the addictive joy that our dogs exude as they rush around working a space? If so, wouldn't it be a good a idea to identify how to build and maintain that ...
Feb 14, 2025•30 min•Ep. 124
There are many moving pieces when it comes to the activity of Scent Work. A common misconception is that Scent Work is easy: train dog to find thing, hide thing in area, dog finds thing, give dog cookie. Yet, to accomplish even this watered down version of Scent Work requires concentrated work and focus. Otherwise our searches will be messy, lackluster and ineffective. In this episode, we discuss how Scent Work is rather complicated, yet the benefits of embracing this fact, ways it can help deep...
Feb 07, 2025•28 min•Ep. 123
You're tackling a search with your dog. They have found a few hides and there are one or more hides left. Suddenly, they stop and look back at you. They are not near anything, they are not alerting...no, they are asking a dreaded question! Now what?! Is this the end of the world? What does mean?! What do you do?! In this episode, we discuss the meaning behind our dog's asking questions in Scent Work, what this can look like and how questions are not necessarily "bad", but rather information. Onc...
Sep 07, 2024•27 min•Ep. 122
It is far too easy to develop blind spots when training or trialing with our dogs, working with clients, designing searches as a trial official, finding or running trials as a host or evaluating rules or regulations as a competition organization staff member. Our perspective may be rather limited, causing us to not see the fullest and most accurate picture possible. This skewed perspective may then color the decisions we make, the training plan we put together, how we evaluate our team's progres...
Aug 23, 2024•20 min•Ep. 121
Instructors are tasked to share their knowledge and expertise with their human clients in such a way that the client can then internalize, understand and interpret that information for their dog. This is no easy task! However, it becomes close to impossible if the way this information is packaged causes the client to not want to receive it. In this episode, we discuss the art of giving and receiving information. Tone, facial expressions, body behavior are all important factors. Exhaustion, burno...
Aug 10, 2024•39 min•Ep. 120
It is all too common to find ourselves making statements such as, "At this stage, I should do THIS" or "After this STEP, I follow this STEP and then that STEP." What's the issue you may ask? Well, this line of thinking is rather concrete. Individual needs of the dog, handler or team, unique factors for that given search, environment or training session or trialing search are not taken into account. In this episode, we discuss the importance of being more flexible both when we are training and tr...
Aug 02, 2024•31 min•Ep. 119
In this spotlight episode, we have the distinct privilege to speak to Kayla Dever and Samantha Winslow of Every Dog Nosework about how they plunged into helping build the Nose Work community in their area. This includes developing their training skills, competition accolades, hosting trials, workshops, seminars and more. An amazing example of doers who are giving back to the sniffing community and sharing their love for all things Nose Work with many dog and handler teams. Speaker: Dianna L. San...
Jul 19, 2024•52 min•Ep. 118
It is interesting how when it comes to Scent Work, everything is seemingly viewed through the lens of the dog's ability to hunt and source their hides. If something doesn't go well, that means we must do more searches, right? In this episode, we discuss how there are so many skills a dog, handler and team need to be successful in Scent Work, many of which have absolutely nothing to do with hunting or odor! Thus, there are times drilling more searches may be the last thing we want to do. Speaker:...
Jul 12, 2024•31 min•Ep. 117
In this Spotlight Series episode, we have the distinct privilege of speaking with Lori Timberlake of Do Over Dog Training regarding her amazing Foster Dog Sniffer School program . This is an incredible program designed to help shelter and foster dogs within Lori's community by providing them an opportunity to enjoy all the benefits Nose Work has to offer. Lori recently offered a webinar where she went into more detail about how this type of program works, Nose Work: Perfect Activity for Dogs in ...
Jul 05, 2024•47 min•Ep. 116
The choices we make regarding our reactive, sensitive and aggressive dogs is an important conversation to have. It is paramount that safety be a significant factor. This is especially true when we are considering whether to trial with our dog or not. We delve into this important topic in this podcast episode. If your dog is struggling with behavioral issues, please seek out professional, reputable help. This professional should be experienced in working with behavioral cases. Ideally, this profe...
Jun 30, 2024•34 min•Ep. 115
When it comes to training or trialing in Scent Work, we oftentimes have a running dialogue in our mind that may be less than accurate. Some common examples include: "My dog is distracted!" "My dog lies!" "My dog is so lazy!" "My leash handling is awful!" "I cannot read my dog!" "My memory is terrible, I cannot remember where we have been or what hides I have called!" These declarative statements become a self-fulfilling prophecy of sorts, but they are oftentimes missing the mark or are simply no...
Jun 21, 2024•23 min•Ep. 114
Competing in Scent Work involves receiving qualifying or non-qualifying scores, earning titles or even placements...but what does all of this really mean?! Does every Q earned mean our training is utterly perfect, unicorns and rainbows, whereas every NQ should be met with blowing up our training and starting over from scratch? If we do not earn a placement at a trial, do we have a ton of work ahead of us whereas earning a placement means all is well? If we do earn a title, does that mean that ou...
Apr 26, 2024•25 min•Ep. 113
We are living through an exciting time where there is a plethora of learning opportunities within the Scent Work training community! This includes access to countless experienced instructors and trainers who offer unique viewpoints and training approaches, creative training exercises and much more. The way we take in and utilize all this information matters. In this episode, we discuss the importance of being a critical consumer, asking questions, being mindful, looking for what will be helpful ...
Apr 12, 2024•46 min•Ep. 112
As we play Scent Work, we work to develop skills for the dog, handler and team in our classes and training sessions. Especially for teams who are interested in competing, testing those skills with blind hides, time limits and other potential stressors is key. Traditionally, mock trials and Sniff N' Gos were the type of events that met this need. However, we can all agree the more creative the event, the more likely we are to participate! In this episode, we speak with Lori Timberlake of Do Over ...
Apr 05, 2024•37 min•Ep. 111
One of the many wonderful aspects of Scent Work is how it is a benefical activity for so many categories of dogs, including reactive dogs. In this episode, we have the privilege to speak with Christina Young of Positive Dog , a certified dog behavior consultant with IAABC and PPG, about playing the Scent Work game with reactive dogs. Learn more about Christina: Positive Dog Website Leash Reactivity: Make Walks Fun Again Webinar Primary, Paired and Odor Hides: Choosing the Hide for the Training C...
Mar 29, 2024•37 min•Ep. 110
Whether it be due to old age, injuries, illness or simply not wanting to play the game anymore, we may find ourselves faced with the prospect of retiring our dogs from Nose Work. In this episode, we speak with Lori Timberlake of Do Over Dog Training about her personal journey with her senior girl Daisy who, while still full of spice and vinegar, made it clear she much preferred romps in the woods over playing Nose Work. We are so incredibly thankful to Lori for sharing her story, the emotions sh...
Mar 22, 2024•42 min•Ep. 109
We are all incredibly busy, fluttering around doing a million things at once. How often have you found yourself trying to squeeze in a Scent Work training session? "I've got a few minutes...let's do a quick search!" In this episode, Dianna explains how one such "I can do this quick!" training session went completely off the rails, how breathing and staying mindful would have been a far better solution yet the learning she was able to walk away with. Want to learn more about the new Let's Get Ins...
Mar 15, 2024•19 min•Ep. 108
Regardless of why we are playing Scent Work or what our goals are, we should take time to better understand odor, odor theory and hide placement. In this episode, we discuss the benefits of better understanding these concepts and how doing so can ensure our dogs to have more successful repetitions in their Scent Work training sessions. Looking to learn more about odor theory and hide placement? Check out these resources: Hide Placement and Odor Movement Seminar with Laurel Scarioni Sniff Busters...
Mar 08, 2024•16 min•Ep. 107
Dealing with absolutes is riddled with issues. Yet it is far too common for statements containing "always" and "never" to be thrown around when discussing Scent Work. Black and white type thinking can be problematic to stay the very least. In this episode, we delve into the importance of embracing the grey to take into account all the variables including the dog, handler, team, search area, environmental factors and more. Speaker: Dianna L. Santos ----more---- Scent Work University is an online ...
Mar 01, 2024•26 min•Ep. 106
Handlers should absolutely advocate for their dogs. They know their dogs best and will be the ones who will decide the short-term and long-term goals for themselves, their dog and their team as a unit. Handlers working with an instructor should view this professional as an integral part of the team. These professionals can ensure all these goals are met, avoid common pitfalls or course correct if necessary. However, doing so can be complicated in a group class setting depending on the circumstan...
Feb 23, 2024•28 min•Ep. 105
As we are training and trialing in Scent Work, we will start accumulating successes. However, we should evaluate these successes objectively and honestly, otherwise we can start experiencing some issues. In this episode, we discuss why this type of honest assessment is crucially important to ensure the future progression of ourselves and our dogs as we continue to play the sniffing game. Speaker: Dianna L. Santos ----more---- Scent Work University is an online dog training platform focused on al...
Feb 17, 2024•35 min•Ep. 104
Being a Scent Work instructor is an honor and a privilege. You devote countless hours learning and honing your craft, perfecting it with your own dogs and then transferring that knowledge to your clients. Those clients then go on to play the wonderful sniffing game, having successes and a blast doing so. However, to be an effective teacher requires one also be a student, someone open to learning new information, approaches and perspectives. The issue? There may come a point in time when this see...
Feb 10, 2024•45 min•Ep. 103
