This week on The Dog Hang Podcast we’re joined by Pam Mackinnon, founder of Talking Dogs (TD) Scentwork. Pam teaches pet owners and their dogs how to form scent detection teams purely for fun! TD Scentwork offers workshops up and down the country with regionally based trainers conducting a curriculum style progression of learning. They’ve also recently launched an online version of the course so you can learn about this fantastic relationship building technique from the comfort of your own home. The online course also provides the option of tailoring content for puppies and seniors so you’re learning the most appropriate methods whatever your dogs age.

In this episode Pam talks about the dogs she’s owned, how she got into scent detection work with Customs & Excise in the mid-80s, what caused her to leave the profession and how she re-discovered her love of working with dogs after a brief hiatus.

We go on to discuss how the idea for TD Scentwork came about, how the course uses abandoned rail yards to up-skill your canine, why speaking ‘dog’ should be taught to all dog owners and her issues with the Dangerous Dogs Act & Electric Shock Collars.

If you’re interested in scent detection work, want to find out what it’s like to work for various agencies (Pam has also worked as a behaviourist for a re-homing charity and with Hearing Dogs) or just want to hear the thoughts of someone with decades of experience training dogs (and humans!) then this is a must listen.

To find out more head over to the Talking Dogs Scentwork website at www.scentwork.com, learn how to scent detect on the online course at www.detectordog.co.uk or reach out to Pam herself using @scentworker on Instagram, Facebook or Twitter.

As always please remember to like and subscribe to the podcast on iTunes & Spotify. We’d really like to get your feedback so make sure you leave comments on those platforms or on our website (www.thedoghang.com) with regards to what we can improve. Last week J.Z.CoachingDogs got in touch on Instagram to request we change the podcast tag line to ensure we’re not promoting ‘switched off’ dog walking… Big shout to out to them for the feedback and hopefully they’ll be happy to see we’ve made the amends!