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COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY'S DOG COGNITION LAB AUTHOR & RESEARCH
ALEXANDRA HOROWITZ is the author of the #1 New York Times bestseller Inside of a Dog: What Dogs See, Smell, and Know; Being a Dog: Following the Dog into a World of Smell; Our Dogs, Ourselves: The Story of a Singular Bond; and The Year of the Puppy: How Dogs Become Themselves.
BEHAVIORAL CHANGE OF NOSE WORK -- FROM REACTIVE / SHY TO CONFIDENT
“After a few months (~of nose work), all the dogs are changed. One dog who began as a barker, reactive to other dogs, mostly ignores them in search of a quarter-inch of cubed chicken...
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Others have learned to look to their owners to tell the people something, not just to ask them or to get instruction; or that it’s okay to their nose on a table or gently jump up on a wall.
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Another dog, a collie mix, is like a cartographer. She tours the perimeter and will exhaustively examine every square meter within. When she is done with her survey, she beelines back to the smell spot.”
Being A Dog, Alexandra Horowitz
DOGS NEED TO WORK -- IT'S IN THEIR DNA
“Though unemployed, our dogs are engaged in heavy bouts of mutual adoration and silliness with our family… this seems to be their only occupation. It is enough?
"Dogs are losing their noses. Other research has supported the odd and disturbing result that companion dogs are not only not using their smelling abilities to their capacity; they are forgetting how to be sniffers....
'In a human-defined, visual world, it seems that it does not pay (~for a dog) to notice all the smells around the house, to sort their way through the world by smell. Instead, the typical owned dog gest a mound of food in a bowl once or twice a day whether he sniffs it out or not...
'He (~your dog) may be discouraged from sniffing the sidewalk the lamppost, and even other dogs’ as his owner walks with him—out of the person’s disinterest, press for tie, or horror....
'We talk to the dog in words and point at him with hands, but rarely give him smells to learn and live by. The sad result has been that pet dogs are letting their noses go dormant...."
“As one heads into the arena, one must truly observe the dog, follow him, and trust that wherever he goes, there’s a good reason for it…. I love not knowing: it is a great discovery to have my dog be the informant for me.”
Being A Dog, Alexandra Horowitz
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