Is it good to let dogs sniff a lot on walks?
Anais Hahn
2025-06-17 06:00:54
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Sniffing is hugely beneficial for dogs and essential for their wellbeing. It’s stimulating too - experts tell us just 20 minutes of sniffing is equivalent to an hour’s walk in terms of enrichment for your dog. As humans, we are very visual, but for dogs smells are everything. It’s tempting to hurry our dogs along when time is short, but giving them time to sniff is almost as important as the physical exercise they get from a walk. Sniffing is your dog’s way of making sense of the world around them - and it provides lots of mental stimulation, which can help keep their brain healthy as well as their body. Pay attention to the things your dog likes to sniff the most. We bet when you see how much joy it brings them, you’ll be much more inclined to let them have time to sniff more frequently.
Bret Schmidt
2025-06-05 03:19:51
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Let him. She is known for her clear, step-by-step training that lets beginners and advanced dog trainers see lasting results very quickly. Starting out just training her own Border Collies, she gradually expanded to local classes and seminars, now she travels as far as Europe and teaches students all over the world on how to train their dogs in a positive, bonding, game-based way.
Lempi Stoltenberg
2025-06-05 03:16:35
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Dogs are social and intelligent creatures who require mental exercise as much as they do physical exercise. All dogs are individual with their own needs and preferences, but sniffing activates and exercises the brain and can make them feel just as tired as after a fast-paced walk. When you compare this to a human’s 6 million, we start to see why dogs enjoy sniffing so much. That’s why these slower walks, where a dog can stop and smell the flowers can be more pleasurable for your dog as they can glean so much information from a smell and it’s incredibly enriching for them. Sniffing can also be very calming for dogs. A meandering, sniff session on a long-leash can release the mood-boosting chemical in their brain called dopamine. So, slow down your walk and allow your dog plenty of opportunity and time to sniff.
Ted Beahan
2025-06-05 03:02:27
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Allowing your dog to exercise their sense of smell is an often-overlooked way to pique your dog’s interest. A dog’s nose is 100,000 times more sensitive than ours. When dogs sniff their surroundings, they can learn about what other dogs were in the area before them and even what kind of mood they were in. If you give your dog a chance to explore its surroundings through smell, they will enjoy going on walks more. Rover will be more mentally stimulated, gain confidence, and in the end be more tired and relaxed. Slow down your walk to include grassy areas and non-paved surfaces. Let your dog's powerful nose find new scents. Doing this will be much more stimulating than a quick walk with no sniff time. The mental stimulation that a dog gets on a slow walk with lots of sniffing is greater than that of a frenzied walk. A sniffy walk tires a dog out from all of the analyzing that happens when taking in all the scents.
Celine Lind
2025-06-05 01:34:01
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Sniffing provides lots of mental stimulation, particularly if your dog is growing old in years. Some dogs, especially as they age, prefer to plod slowly and investigate the scents around them. If your dog is also suffering cognitive decline or loss of sight or hearing, a slow walk with plenty of sniffing time is needed to keep them mentally stimulated. As most dogs age, they become increasingly motivated to sniff, irrespective of whether or not that's what they wanted to do before. I think it's a massively important part of their quality of life, being able to sniff. Older dogs don't need to be marching for the whole 10 minutes of a walk. If you have 10 minutes and they go 10 metres but spend nine and a half minutes sniffing a lamp post, for that dog that is probably so much better than you trying to drag it around a circular walk around the block. You see so many dogs being yanked because the owner thinks either the walk is for the dog and it needs to move, or because they are so fed up of the sniffing - but embracing the 'sniffari' is really important.
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