The Canine Kingdom of Scent Book Review and Giveaway
Several years ago, before we were joined by Toby, Wheatie and I took a short tracking course, which was loads of fun. We enjoyed the class and spent many weeks after the class had finished preparing courses in the park for Wheatie to try out to see if he’d spot each twist and turn before coming to the prize of a dirty glove at the end of the trail.
When the new puppy came into our lives, I stopped doing tracking training with Wheatie and my husband periodically asks why we’re not doing it. He’ll be asking no more.
I recently read Anne Lill Kvam’s excellent book The Canine Kingdom of Scent: fun activities using your dog’s natural instincts. My friends at Dogwise gave me a copy to review and give away and you, too, can be inspired to start some fun new training with your pup. One lucky winner will be randomly chosen from those leaving comments at the end of this blog from today through the end of day Friday.
The Canine Kingdom of Scent is written by someone with an obvious and contagious passion for dog training. She shares her tips with an unbridled enthusiasm that makes you want to grab your dog, a handful of treats, and rush outdoors to get started. Kvam begins with a series of general training tips that will be useful for any kind of dog training. She covers:
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- the use of food treats during training
- the development of a treat hierarchy
- jackpot rewards for outstanding behavior
The remainder of the book focuses on a wide range of scent activities:
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- how to start scent training
- playing hid & seek
- teaching retrieval skills
Kvam also discusses why scent training provides a great stimulation for your dog — fostering important mental stimulation that can be lacking in a lot of dog’s lives.
The Canine Kingdom of Scent will give you a full range of skills and techniques to use to foster your dog’s natural scenting abilities that will be fun and exciting for you and your dog. Leave a comment after this blog so you can join me in setting tracking trails for your soon-to-be sniffing expert!
25 Responses to “The Canine Kingdom of Scent Book Review and Giveaway”
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Books by Dr. Marcus
Sounds like a really fun thing to do with my Cavalier who can’t keep his nose out of the grass. Thanks for the review.
This sounds like a very interesting book! Thanks so much for letting us know about it. I’d love to get it and try some tracking with our sons basset hound. I’ll have to check out this book. I’ll also pass the word on to a friend of ours who does tracking with his bloodhound puppy. Thanks again and have a great day,
Mary
My terriers are always sniffing so this would be great to have some activities to direct their natural instinct. Maybe more importantly it would give me some more ideas to have fun with them!
Sounds like just the kind of information I need for my two dogs! They’re constantly scratching and sniffing the ground as they move along in the yard; most times they lose the scent, so it would be great to know how to actually train them in the art of “following their noses”! Who knows….might help me out too! LOL
I would love to do scent training with my dogs! Was the tracking class in the Pittsburgh area? My therapy dog, Obi, is almost hound-like in his complete focus once he gets his nose to the ground (which sometimes made TDI training difficult!) and I think he would love a tracking class. But I’ve really wanted to do something with my older pit bull/lab mix because she is often stuck at home while Obi does therapy visits. She has exhibited dog agression and, although she is outrageously smart, she can’t be involved in group training situations. I have often thought tracking would be an ideal thing we could spend time on together. Thanks for the review! Lori
Scentwork is the best. Great way to build confidence in a timid/fearful dog.
Scent work seems like it would be a fun and enjoyable activity for me and my dog to do together. Sounds like a great book with lots of valuable information! Thanks for writing the review and offering the giveaway.
Sounds fun thanks for offering the giveaway!
I started tracking with my dog when I got her from rescue. It was a way for us to develop our relationship and it was really self rewarding for her. It’s great fun!
Even if I don’t win, looks like a book I need to have.
This book sounds fascinating. Would love to get my hands on it. (being a primate)
Sounds like a very interesting book. I would love to try scent training with my BC. Seems like a great way to keep him mentally stimulated!
I’m interested in doing some scentwork with my dog…I’d love to read this.
I’ve been wanting to try tracking with one of my dogs as I think it would be lots of fun. I also think it would help boost my dogs confidence, and he definitely needs a confidence boost now and again.
Trying Nose work right now with my border Collie and think this book would be a wonderful addition to add to my learning more about how dogs use their sense of smell.
Sounds like a good book! I keep wanting to do more with scent/tracking with my sheltie boy.
I recently started doing some fun scent work with my 8 year old mixed breed. I noticed while playing fetch that if he didn’t hear or see where his ball landed (due to occasional airplanes flying over our house to the airport), he would run around searching for it and always seemed really excited about the search! So last month when we actually got a bit of snow here in RI, I started tossing his ball into the snow when he wasn’t looking and telling him to “find it”. He loved it! I’m now thinking about taking a K9 Nose Work class with him, but this book sounds like it would give me some great ideas!
I wanted to train my dobe to track, but never got to do it. I thought it would be too difficult. Now he is gone, but I would like to teach at least one of my dogs to track someday! This looks like a good book to start with!
Tracking is the most amazing sport – the dog is in control & totally loves it. My boy Hokey has now fought off two cancers & can still track (despite chemo & then radiation to his nose). It is by far his favorite game to play with me
Nosework is on our list of things to learn (well for me to learn the rules – his nose is trained 
We are coming into the cooler months here in Australia and having found out quite by accident during the summer that my Rhodesian ridgeback is a natural tracker, I can’t want to get started. This book would be invaluable to us, as tracking is something my senior girl can still do and enjoy.
PS – We don’t track here during summer because of the snakes!
We use scent a lot through The Behavior Clinic as an enrichment tool for many of our patients and as reinforcement. I’m always on the lookout for great books that we can recommend and share with our clients and this looks like another great Dogwise hit!
My husband has done a bit of tracking training with our 2. They really enjoy the fun game… tails are wagging like crazy.
Congratulations Teresa – my random winner wheel picked you to win this terrific book!