What is Nosework?

By Ed Frawley  |  Last modified: April 13, 2022

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The basic concept of this new dog sport is that people can train their household pet to be detector dogs that indicate on legal odors. What's cool about this dog sport is that dogs of any breed, size, and temperament can easily be trained to compete in nosework competitions.

Dogs do not have to have any prior obedience training to do this work, and the training has zero effect on dogs that are being trained for other dog sports like agility or competition obedience.

Nosework training is 100% motivational training. There are absolutely no corrections at any level of the work, which is why every dog can be trained for nosework competitions.

While narcotic detection dogs and military working dogs indicate on the odor of narcotics and explosives, nosework dogs are trained to indicate on legal odors - specifically the odor of Birch, Anise, or Clove.

The interesting thing is that the training for narcotic detection dogs or military explosive dogs is exactly the same as it is for nosework dogs.

In fact, Andrew Ramsey has taken his experience in training military detection dogs and broken the training steps down in much simpler smaller training steps than what police service dogs or military working dog trainers use on their dogs.

Pet dogs that could never be a police service or military working dog can now become very good nosework competitors. In fact, we see dogs with environmental or social behavioral problems become very good nosework dogs.

This concept of nosework as a dog sport began on the West Coast and is growing rapidly. Right now, there is serveral organizations in which people can compete. It is growing so fast, it won't surprise me if more organizations evolve.

Andrew Ramsey is a professional dog trainer who lives in the bay area of San Francisco and specializes in training nosework dogs and some police service dogs.

Before going into business for himself in 2010, Andrew spent 6 years working for the department of defense in the military working dog program at Lackland Air Force based in Texas. For those who are not aware, the Lackland training facility is where the military and TSA train their service dogs.

Andrew is a friend of Michael Ellis, whom we have produced many excellent training DVDs with and it was Michael who recommended Andrew to us and suggested we produce these nosework videos with Andrew.

Andrew has studied Michael's training program. He incorporates marker training and many of the concepts in the Ellis food and tug DVDs in his nosework.

Andrews's training program is a reward-based training system. This means the dog learns that if it finds and indicates on the desired odor, it will get a high-value reward. Which reward the dog gets depends on the individual dog. Some dogs like a tug, some dogs like a toy, and some dogs work best for food.

The first training DVD that we did with Andrew will teach people the foundation of this work. We show new pet owners exactly how to test their dog to determine which reward system to use. We will go into a great deal of detail to teach handlers of different types of dogs how to set up their training for success.

We are going to explain how to set up a training area and how to introduce the dog to odor. New trainers will learn how to establish a search pattern that the dogs learn and how to teach a focused response when the dog finds the odor.

The second training DVD covers Andrew Ramsey’s methods for teaching a detector dog obedience to odor and a focused response. These are very important skills that every detector dog should know.

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About Author

Ed Frawley

Ed Frawley is the founder and owner of Leerburg.com and has been producing professional dog training videos since 1982. Over the years, he has collaborated with some of the most respected dog trainers in the country. His body of work includes 194 full-length training DVDs and 95 comprehensive online courses. In addition to these, he has produced and published over 4,000 short training videos available free of charge on Leerburg.com and across the company's social media platforms.

Ed and his wife, Cindy—also a professional dog trainer—bred working-line German Shepherds and Belgian Malinois for more than 35 years. Although they retired from breeding in 2009, they had produced over 300 litters by that time.

Ed also served as a K9 handler for the local sheriff's department for 10 years, working in partnership with the West Central Drug Task Force. During his time in law enforcement, he handled multiple narcotics and patrol dogs and conducted more than 1,000 K9 searches. If you want to learn more about Ed, read about his history here.

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