Scentwork classes with Heather Donnelly sign up form
Introduction to scentwork
Scentwork is when a dog uses its sense of smell to identify and locate a scent which it has been trained to detect.
Dogs have a highly sensitive nose, vastly superior to our own. Scentwork is a natural behaviour for a dog and essential in hunting and finding prey. As man’s best friend, this behaviour has been put to many uses – for example in police work, search and rescue, and hunting. As a dog sport, Scentwork has emerged from detection style nosework as practiced by customs and excise, explosives detection, search and rescue and medical detection dogs.
As a training activity, scentwork is fun, very rewarding and at the same time mentally tiring for your dog. It will improve the relationship between you and your dog and is a great confidence builder especially for the shy dog.
What will I learn:
- How to get started
- How to teach your dog to search a variety of items
- Learn what your dog is saying through body language
- How to teach your dog to find a specific odour
- What is and what’s involved in a ‘Blind Search’
- Learn what are good and bad hiding places for when you practise at home
Your trainer
Heather Donnelly was the co-founder of ‘Scentwork UK’ the biggest scentwork organisation in the UK. A main part of this role was running training courses for trainers, police & dog security handlers wanting to become ‘Scentwork UK’ trainers, judges, and Trials managers.
In April 2023, Heather handled over the reins of Scentwork UK and now enjoys running workshops for beginners who want to learn about scentwork or might want to go on and enter competitions.
As well as an occasional guest trainer for other clubs, Heather has provided training and helped others to train their dogs for both scentwork and tracking, either in groups or on a one to one basis.
In 2001 Heather completed the City and Guilds teacher’s training certificate and provided 10 week courses and one day courses for the adult education departments in the area. Now she likes to apply her teaching skills and credentials to helping people to train their dogs.
For over 20 years, Heather has competed in Working Trials with five dogs. Three of these obtained the “Tracking Dog Excellent” (TDex) qualification and twice winning the ‘best nose-work’ award in these competitions. Heather trained a ‘Show Champion’ Border Collie to achieve the following nosework qualifications CDex, UDex & Wdex and is still the only person that has achieved this in the UK.
Heather also teaches tracking and has qualified 5 dogs to the highest kennel Club working trials level over the past 25 years. Heather is also a KC championship judge in Breed Conformation as well as Working Trials.
Accreditations
- City and Guilds teacher’s training certificate (2001)
- Kennel Club Judge (both breed & Working Trials) at Championship level.
- Kennel Club Good Citizen tests – qualified to judge at all 3 levels.
Important information
Your place will be secured once we receive a full payment of £75 for the Introduction to scentwork course or £45 for the Farm Search event.
Please make a payment to:
Happy K9 Training and Behaviour
Sort code: 04-03-33
Account number: 25819164
quoting your surname and dog’s name in the reference field.
Please note that the fee is not refundable unless cancellation is made 2 weeks prior to the course start date.
We will be in touch shortly. If you don’t receive an email from us within 24 hours, please check your Junk/Spam folder.
We look forward to meeting you and your dog.