How much equipment is necessary for Nosework? Can you give me an idea of what I will need in order to get started before I commit to buying the DVD?

Hi Mari,

There are really very few things that are needed to get started in Nosework, that is one of the many reasons why it is so great. On top of that the dogs love it :) You of course need your target odor, you need your dog's favorite reward, which it is very important to figure out exactly what that is, and you need to set up a very simple training area, or "Training Lab" initially that favors the training experience as far as maximizing your dogs enjoyment for the activity as well as providing the ideal odor encounter. Andrew has trained detection dogs in a multitude of areas and used many different set ups and has isolated the crucial core elements that are necessary to teach dogs to search for and indicate target odors The training area that you have seen in the Leerburg clips has a wide variety of items in it. Not all of them are entirely necessary and we actually explain this in the introductory DVD. The convenient thing about this training process is that the furniture that you use for your training lab does not have cost you a lot of money, many people create perfect training areas without spending ANY money.

The "Training Lab" is what we use to properly introduce the dog to this activity, motivate them to search and teach them the specific behavior we require of them in order to obtain their reward once they have located the target odor. Once we have successfully completed this process we can go ANYWHERE and do Nosework with our dogs. That is part of the fun, training in new places all the time. At this point your training sessions cost nothing. :) Anywhere that you are allowed to take dogs you can do Nosework.

The dogs LOVE it!

Cindy Rhodes