Mantrailing, Environmental Training & Processing

Most people view Mantrailing as an upbeat sniffy dog sport that gets dogs out into the world doing what they love most, sniffing.

Exactly right!  Out in the woods and urban areas looking for people who have yummy treats, it’s that simple.

It is quite simple in theory, indeed. Dogs are social adjustable creatures, human’s best friends that follow us around and love to come to different places with us. They also love to sniff and need to move even more than we do.

Fact is however, that many dogs in the modern world despite being loved profusely, don’t get to spend much time with humans outside of their home environment. Few get to visit friends’ house occasionally, maybe come to the office with the owner sometimes. Some lucky dogs get to visit Sniffspots, join roadtrips to visit friends in the country, auntie in the city, uncle in the mountains and go on sniff walks in totally new places. That’s a wonderful dog life, right there 💚 But in reality not all dogs get to go so many places.

Environmental training is a thing. Dog trainers who train service dogs, detection dogs, therapy dogs know this well and allot a big chunk of the dog’s early training to environmental habituation. It is a crucial part of dog’s education, actually. CGC class formats resemble rudimentary environmental education for pet dogs.

Why is environmental training important?

Without exposure, we can’t expect a dog (or human) to feel comfortable in a new environment. The process of routine exposure to novel sights, sounds, and experiences is called habituation.

Imagine a person who grew up in a countryside leave the village to relocate to New York City. It’s a dramatic example, but a good one to make us think how overwhelming of an experience this could be if zero habituation to the city has happened prior to relocation.

Sport of Mantrailing is a great way to slowly but surely build a habit of safely exploring new places with your dog.

However, don’t expect your dog to never be surprised and distracted by a novel stimuli like ground surface (be it pine needle straws or sparse brush), the smells of other animals, sounds of kids playing nearby, or obstacles like stairs, gates, or even wide open fields. Some of these experiences may initially be either aversive, or more interesting than the game we’re playing, or frightening to dogs that have no prior experience with them. Yet we don’t even think about them because we’ve encountered these environments so many times before. And on top of that, we are affected differently by our surroundings.

But WHY is it not always smooth and easy to assimilate into new environment, quickly?

Our (and dogs’) senses are wired to protect us against dangers and threats.  Our eyes, ears, skin, vestibular system and nose are doing their job by alerting us to novel stimuli of objects, sounds, surfaces, transitions, and smells we haven’t experienced before. An insecure dog’s priority is safety first! Hence the apprehension.

Next is food! Everyone has to eat and dog’s sense of food safety is different than human’s. Remember they attached themselves to us because of food safety! Smell of edible things is wired into canine brain and many won’t pass an opportunity to scavenge. It’s a deep ancestral call!

And let’s not forget the good ol’ pee mail stops! Like with food, no dog can completely ignore the ever so fascinating pee of another dog, but some dogs are just extra into the social pee-scene. Don’t get mad with them! I bet there’s at least one family member you have that can’t live without TV/radio on all day, and yes dog counterparts exist. Got to know what these dogs eat and what’s up with their hormone levels before I can move on!

All the above drives or reasons to explore, assess, and process the environmental stimuli are functions of our autonomic nervous system, or the lizard brain. These drives are not functions of the cortex, the thinking brain. This is the reason WHY telling your dog to peel herself off pee mail, or leave the chicken bone alone, or “it’s ok, you can cross this shrub” won’t work. Your dog is not able to think when the lizard brain is on, so don’t even try obedience skills at this moment. That wouldn’t be fair. The dog is way deep in the automatic nervous system mode, so you’ll either have to physically remove her or make an exciting noise that will peek her arousal system and get her to spring towards you.

Here is how we can help our dog process and get used to environmental novelties.

1. Be supportive and understanding. Don’t assume your dog shouldn’t be surprised by novel environments and stimuli.

2. Take time with your dog and return after class for extra sniff time in the new area. That can make a huge difference in comfort level around new experiences, and allow for time to explore away from playing sport activities together. It’s a win-win.

3. Take on Mantrailing as an environmental learning opportunity. Environment processing while learning a fun game. You’re basically getting a BOGO - buy one (trailing ticket) get one (environmental training) for free! Slow and steady is the key.

4. Lower your expectations of searching in new environments. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with your dog. Your dog is processing a load of information while you want her to trail, and instincts of searching just can’t emerge before the brain turns off the safety, food, and social channels. It will eventually happen with your instructor’s custom designed trails. Just don’t rush the process and stick to motivational trails for a long time.

5. Make a plan to explore new sites for sniff walks that you haven’t been to before. You can research Sniffspots. Or bring your dog along on a short errand, then take a walk in a new busy area just to sniff and explore.

One way or another, don’t give up on new explorations! Your and your dog’s brain will thank you for it, as you will be making new synapses or connections and thusly keeping your brains younger!

Remember this formula:

Stimulus + processing = integration 🤜🩶🤛

Environment + exploration = happier more confident dog 🤜🩶🤛