Has your phone ever blown up with notifications that you had to attend to? Has breaking news ever caught your attention? What if someone kept slapping your phone out of your hand or blocking you from following the breaking story? Super annoying, right? I imagine that this is what our dogs feel like when we pop the leash to drag them off sniffing blades of grass. 

Time is a limited resource. We often multitask by simultaneously exercising ourselves along with our dogs. Many times this exercise is in the form of a neighborhood walk or jog. However, walking through the neighborhood is not nearly enough physical exercise to tire out most dogs. 

Shift the focus of your walks from physical exercise to mental exercise. Plan on the same amount of time for walking your dog, yet expect to cover a lot less ground as your dog checks her “pee mail.” Rather than 90% walking and 10% sniffing, change to 80% sniffing and 20% walking. Compare your dog’s behavior at home after an 80% sniffing walk with her behavior after a quick neighborhood walk. 

Teach your dog to give you attention before cueing her to “go sniff.” During the walk, use sniffing as a reward for desirable behaviors. These train-and-sniff walks can improve communication between you and your dog. Train-and-sniff walks can also provide your dog much needed mental stimulation. 

Invite your dog on a “choose your own adventure” walk.  If we don’t have to be anywhere, I will allow my dog to choose whether we walk right or left at the end of our sidewalk. Watch your dog before she chooses left or right. Is her nose raised and twitching? Does she look like she’s following a scent? Pretend you’re solving crimes and follow your dog! 

Need to get moving after your dog has sniffed all the things? Instead of yanking the leash, move hand over hand up the leash until you’re right next to your dog. Now you have a better chance of getting her attention. Use your dog’s name, targeting, or another attention game to get your dog moving again. Remember to train these behaviors before you need them on a walk. 

We hope that a train-and-sniff choose-your-own-adventure walk will foster teamwork between you and your dog. Let them sniff!