An Ethogram is a catalog of species-specific behaviors. Sue has created a Nosework-specific Ethogram by watching hundreds of hours of footage of dogs searching during scent sports and categorizing the most common discrete behaviors.
A dog sniffs all day long, taking in odors everywhere. Their sense of smell so much greater than ours that their olfactory world is fairly unfathomable to us. Entering their olfactory world and becoming End-of-the-Leash-Ethologists can make us better dog owners, trainers, observers and ultimately help us communicate better with them.
Whether you are a scent-sports participant or just a dog enthusiast, the video footage here can help make you a keener observer of dogs!
Sue Sternberg is the founder and director of Rondout Valley Animals for Adoption, a local not-for-profit open admission animal shelter in upstate New York. Sue is an expert in dog aggression and an innovator in the field of shelter dog welfare, and she develops programs to prevent pet relinquishment and overpopulation, to match families with safe pets, and to help shelters attend to the mental health of the animals in their care. With more than 35 years of experience, she shares her knowledge of dog behavior on radio and television shows, as a popular speaker at national humane and dog training conferences, and through books and videos.