Canine Education Academy

Intro to fluid dynamics to better understand odour movement for scent work

SMELL was developed by Dr Alexandra Horowitz and Dr Becca Franks in 2012. The concept was developed to help researchers better understand the effects of odour movement when designing experiments. I've adapted SMELL to help us better inform our choices when creating searches and training exercises for our dogs. SMELL stands for; S - Selected Odour M - Mortels and Mongrels E - Environmental Factors L - Landscape L - Lingering Odours Together, we will first investigate each aspect of SMELL individually, and apply them to some real searches and examples. There's plenty of group discussion to be had as we explore the complexities odour movement. Knowing more about how odour moves allows us to better design searches and training exercises for our dogs, and better understand why they perform unwanted behaviours (such as false alerts and skipping hides). This webinar is referenced in its entirety, with a footnotes on each slide and a reference list at then end. A note on this webinar: We are covering university-level physics concepts in this webinar. We will spend plenty of time on each aspect of SMELL, you will be seeing many diagrams and examples, and there is plenty of time for questions. We won't be touching on the mathematical or chemical sides of odour movement in any great detail (including Navier-Stokes, Gaussian plume model, oil compositional analysis etc.). This webinar was designed to bring fluid dynamics to a wider audience.