Dogs need ample time to sniff!

If you’re a dog parent you are probably familiar with the constant stopping during walks so they can sniff and you’ll often respond to this by nudging them along.  However, for a dog, a walk fulfills so much more than exercise and going potty – very important needs to be sure – but sniffing is very important for dogs. Your dog’s sense of smell is nothing short of a superpower and their daily sniff routine can help them identify what’s happening in their environment, as well as lower their stress levels.

Getting out for a walk is one of life’s joys and it gives us a chance to experience all the sights and sounds of the great outdoors. As we take in all of these sensory experiences, we often forget that our dogs see the world very differently than we do – and while we are looking at the sights, our dogs are discovering far more about the area by its smells. On routine morning and evening walks, we may just be running late for work, or anxious to get the evening potty done to unwind and eventually go to bed, so we may feel naturally impatient when our dog is stopping frequently to sniff.  Dog parents may get subsequently impatient that while they want to stride off across the countryside or have an active walk around the park to make sure their dog gets their daily exercise; or, they really want them to just potty already!

It’s easy to drag them away thinking they are wasting precious exercise time, human exploration time, or taking too long to potty, but that’s purely because we do not have anything even close to a dog’s sense of smell.  We can’t comprehend just how incredible our dog’s nose is – or that this tremendous ability means that unlike us, they see the world in what I like to call: smell-o-vision.

While they are sniffing, they are learning about the area, who lives there, who has passed by recently, and even what kind of mood they may have been in. All the time they are sniffing, they are processing information about the environment and who and what is in it.

The power of a dog’s sense of smell

It’s easy to see why we don’t understand this. When it comes to sniffing, humans are not even in the same universe. Depending on the breed or type, a dog’s sense of smell can be around 10,000 – 150,000 times better than ours. They possess up to 300 million olfactory receptors in their noses compared to a mere six million in ours and the part of their brain that analyses and processes scents is proportionally 30-60 times greater than ours.

These numbers may mean little to us, as we are primarily visual and so we think and process what we see far more than what we smell.  If we created an analogy to sight, the information that we collect gazing a third of a mile away, what a dog can smell is equivalent to more than 3,000 miles away.

This is the reason dogs can detect cancer cells, explosives, drugs, and track and find lost people or animals – all by using the power of their noses and the part of their brain that analyses and processes those scents.

Sniffing has so many benefits for your dog

As dog parents we need to give our dogs ample time to sniff. Most of us know that nothing tires our dog as much as an hour’s physical exercise, but we don’t always recognize that five minutes spent sniffing accomplishes a very similar goal. It’s not just their noses that are working, it’s a large part of their brains that gets exercised as well. For active dogs, or for dogs who start their walks totally out of control and either pulling on the lead in their excitement, or doing zoomies all over the place, time spent sniffing can take the edge off their unfocussed energy.

For worried reactive dogs, sniffing can help them feel more secure, as it gives them ample experience to work out what is out there and whether it needs to be worried about or whether it is safe.

Perhaps more importantly, a chance to sniff fulfils a major part of their sensory needs just as importantly as physical and mental exercises and play does. Sniffing makes them happy and gives them an outlet for their hard-wired natural instincts.

We commonly ignore this vital part of our dogs’ needs because we just don’t understand it.  Compounding this, we may be pressed for time, feel compelled to provide proper exercise because we may not have fenced in back yard.

My own back yard backs up to a lake, providing beautiful views of the water, conservation areas, and wildlife…but my homeowner’s association does not permit homes on the lake to have fenced in yards, to not obstruct the views offered to my neighbors and me.  Thus, my dog’s sole means of exercise is to walk them as often as I can, combined with 2-3 days per week at dog day care.

For the walking part, both my dogs know the different between a brisk walk or running, strictly exercise sessions.  I keep them on my left at all times and between that and the increased pace, they know it is exercise time, not sniff time.  At first, it took a bit of training to give them a gentle nudge when they diverged from the path to sniff, but in just a few sessions they got it.

During the sniff time walks, I give my dogs free reign to be on either side of me and slacken my pace.  During these walks – typically their final evening walk – they are free to sniff away with no resistance from me.  It is amazing, how they can quickly and easily recognize the difference between each type of walk.

Both my fiancé and I work 9 AM – 5 PM, and commonly even longer hours, so we supplement their walk/run/sniff time with 2-3 days a week at dog day care.  At day care, they get to fulfill the best of both worlds, spending the day sniffing and playing with other dogs at their own pace and discretion.

No matter what your recipe as a dog parent may be, be sure to include ample sniff time into their regimen, and always recognize it as an integral component to their overall health.

Dr. Roger Welton is a practicing veterinarian and highly regarded media personality through a number of topics and platforms. He is the author of his top selling memoir The Man In The White Coat: A Veterinarian’s Tail Of Love. In addition to this writing this blog, Dr. Welton also hosts the popular Space Coast Pet Podcast.  He is the CEO and chief attending veterinarian of Premier Veterinary Care in Viera, FL.