K9 Nose Time Course Outline
Intro Series
Foundations of a good team starts here. These classes move in a progression from left to right.
Intro to K9 Nose Work – Part 1
Suitable for teams new to K9 Nose Work
🐾 Ready to unleash your dog’s inner detective? 🐾
Join us for an exciting introduction to the world of K9 Nose Work®!
In this fun and interactive class, you’ll dive into the foundational “box game,” discover what truly motivates your dog, and start building confidence, focus, and teamwork—right from the first sniff! 🌟
Whether you’re looking to try something new, build a stronger bond with your dog, or eventually compete, this class is your perfect starting point. Come and experience the magic of scent detection and see your dog light up with purpose and joy!
Let the sniffing adventure begin! 🐕
Intro to K9 Nose Work – Part 2
In this fun and interactive class, we introduce essential handler skills to help strengthen your teamwork and communication. You’ll refine your understanding of the game, enhance your dog’s independence, and prepare your team for the exciting introduction of target odour—and beyond!
✨ Discover how to:
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Support your dog without over-handling
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Recognize subtle changes in body language
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Build confident, focused search teams
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Have even more fun while learning!
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Whether your goal is competition or connection, this class gives you the tools to deepen your team’s potential.
Intro to Odour – Birch
In this class, you will:
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Introduce your dog to target odour in a clear and straightforward way that’s easy for both dog and handler to understand.
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Develop your dog’s understanding of odour and how it moves in different environments.
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Maintain and build on the enthusiasm and drive established in the Intro series.
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Continue to strengthen your teamwork while having fun!
✨ Let the sniffing adventure continue!
Intro to Odour – Anise and Clove
In this class, you will:
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Introduce your dog to target odour in a clear and straightforward way that’s easy for both dog and handler to understand.
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Develop your dog’s understanding of odour and how it moves in different environments.
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Maintain and build on the enthusiasm and drive established in the Intro series.
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Continue to strengthen your teamwork while having fun!
✨ Let the sniffing adventure continue!
Foundations
Nosework Basecamp: Essential Skills: Foundations for every step of the nosework journey
This 4-week class is part of our Essential Skills series. It will continue the development of strong search skills – hunt drive, motivation, independence – as we focus on handler mechanics. At the end of this class teams should feel more proficient with cues, reward processes, start/end routines and leash handling. The goal is to start to build confidence with running baseline blind searches.
Essential Skills
“Advanced training is just the basics done really well.” (Ken Ramirez)
These are the foundation concepts needed for every step of the nosework journey. Prepare your new dog with the best tools from the start, or revisit the basics with your advanced dog. Create clarity and confidence in your cues and handling so that your dog can search with joy and independence.
Trial Tactics – Novice, Advanced and Nose Work 1
Designed for dogs who are proficient on all sport odours.
This 4-week class is part of our Essential Skills series. This class will focus on skills that set teams up for success at the first stages of trialling – ACSW NW1 / Level 1 Elements or ANKC Novice / Advanced. Teams will work on their dog’s focused searching, value for odour and sourcing skills, and the handling mechanics needed to support these goals.
Odour Odyssy
Elevation & Buried
Hides & Lows
Designed for dogs who are proficient on all sport odours.
In this class, we’ll explore the unique dynamics of elevated and ground-level hides, teaching you how odour interacts with the environment and how to support your dog’s problem-solving skills.
In this class you’ll work on:
🔹 Solving elevated and buried odour puzzles
🔹 Understanding how different surfaces affect odour movement
🔹 How elevated hides behave with their immediate environment
🔹 Odour accessibility and availability
🔹 Tackling suspended hides
🔹 Recognising subtle changes of behaviour on elevated hides
✨ Perfect for teams wanting to sharpen their handling, improve their reading of changes of behaviour, and give their dogs a whole new set of skills!
Let your dog rise to the challenge—literally! 🐾
3 Hide Puzzles
Triple Treat: 3 Hide Puzzles
“Where dogs solve the puzzles”
True partnership involves understanding your teammate’s strengths – and solving odour problems is your dog’s superpower! This class is about providing your dog with a range of learning experiences and challenges. The goal is an empowered dog who keeps searching until they solve the puzzle. Dogs will gain confidence and proficiency, whilst handlers work to improve their observation skills and handling. Challenges are tailored to the skill level of the teams in class.
Topics covered include: odour movement, understanding search environments, how to set appropriate challenges, handler mechanics, covering a search area, converging odour, hides in multiple planes, layered challenges
Inaccessible/Drive to source
Can’t touch this: The inaccessible hide
Designed for dogs who are proficient on all sport odours, this class focuses on:
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Building drive to source.
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Setting up training scenarios for sourcing the inaccessible hide.
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Reading your dog on a variety of inaccessible odour puzzles.
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Using barrier challenges to help solve inaccessible puzzles.
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Helping your dog make a decision.
Skills Progression
Container Skills – Distractors
Sniff or Skip: The Distractor Dilemma
Designed for dogs who are proficient on all sport odours, this class focuses on working through intentional container distractors. Learning to interperet your dogs behavior at distractors so you can better read them on odour. Exposure to different container set ups and different configurations that are seen at the higher levels.
Thresholds, Corners & Perimeters
Designed for dogs who are proficient on all sport odours, this class focuses on the following.
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Start line routines and working from the threshold
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Odour movement and availability – do you need to return to the threshold?
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Perimeters – interiors vs exteriors. Working outside the search area?
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Corners – complicated scent pictures, elevation, odour availability.