Scentwork
Scentwork is something you and your dog can learn and develop together.
Scentwork gives dogs the opportunity to search, investigate and solve problems using their most powerful sense, while giving handlers a whole new set of skills to develop too.
At Shire Scentwork, we build confident, independent searching alongside skilled, thoughtful handling. Whether you're completely new, want a great activity to enjoy with your dog, or you're developing more technical or competition skills, we'll work from where you are.
Find your starting point
New to scentwork?
Already working odour?
Start from the beginning
Come and search
Learn how scentwork works and build the foundations properly from the start. Join one of our Foundations courses or get started individually with one-to-one training.
If your dog is already confidently searching for a target odour, join our regular Scentwork Club sessions. No block commitment - book the sessions that suit you.
developing specific skills?
Dig into the detail
Go deeper into the mechanics of the search. Work on handling, independence, discrimination, indications and preparation for assessments or competition.
Ready to test yourself?
Get involved
Dive into a specialist workshop, put your training to the test at a trial, or come along to one of our one-off events. These are occasional, so keep an eye out for what's coming up.
Starting Scentwork
You don't need any previous experience to get started. Our Foundations training builds skills progressively, helping your dog learn to search independently, recognise target odour and communicate when they've found it, while you learn how to read and support the search.
Foundations Course
One-to-Ones
Learn the core skills step by step in a small group. Foundations courses run regularly throughout the year so if there are no dates available right now, you can register your interest and we'll let you know when the next course is available to book.
Prefer individual training, don't want to wait for the next course, or have more than one dog you'd like to work with? One-to-One Foundations lets you work through the same core skills at a pace tailored to you and your dogs.
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Come along and search.
Scentwork Club
Our regular Club sessions are for dogs already working odour, and are all about getting out and searching.
We train in a variety of environments, setting different searches and scenarios for teams to work through. Club gives you and your dog the opportunity to build experience, confidence and independence across a wide range of searches.
There's no block commitment. Book the sessions that suit you and come as often as you like.Â
Club format. Technical focus.
Scentwork Skills Sessions
Scentwork Skills Sessions run in the same way as Club, but with a different purpose. Club is about getting out and searching, building experience across a wide range of environments. These sessions take a deeper look at the individual components that build a successful scentwork team.
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These sessions are more technical and more structured. We will look at everything from building and maintaining foundations to developing advanced skills. We break things down, set exercises built around a particular skill or problem, and spend time on the mechanics. One session might be entirely about how you cover a search area. Another might be about reading your dog while they work a complex odour picture.
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These sessions are ideal for those who want to get deeper into the theory, who want to understand the why as well as the how, or those looking to sharpen their abilities. That might mean tightening up handling, building independence, working on discrimination or indications, or preparing for assessments and competitions. It might simply mean wanting to understand the work more deeply.
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Coming soon - register your interest to hear when they are open for booking.Â
Training built entirely around you and your dog.
One-to-One Scentwork
One-to-One sessions give you dedicated coaching time, with the freedom to focus on exactly what you want to work on.
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We can concentrate on one particular issue, explore several different aspects of your training, or simply spend more time looking closely at how you and your dog work together.
If you have more than one dog, you can work multiple dogs within the session, with the training adapted to each of them.
We can also select a location and search environment to suit what you want to work on, whether that's developing a particular skill, troubleshooting an issue or giving you and your dog experience in a specific scenario.
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One-to-ones are suitable for any stage, from getting started through to experienced teams looking for focused training.
Workshops, Trials & Events
More opportunities to learn, develop and put your training into practice.
Throughout the year, we run a range of scentwork workshops, trials, assessments and other events alongside our regular training.
Our workshops give us the opportunity to spend more time exploring specialist topics in depth. These can cover anything from particular search skills and handling to indications, odour work, problem-solving, search strategy and other technical aspects of scentwork.
Trials and assessments offer a different kind of challenge, giving teams the opportunity to put their training into practice in new environments and under different conditions.
What we offer changes throughout the year, so keep an eye on upcoming events for new workshops, trial dates and other opportunities to train with us.
