One of the most amazing things I have had the pleasure of watching is a dog using their nose. It is next to impossible for us humans to really understand how it works and certainly our noses cannot even begin to compare. But when you are in a room or outside watching them search for something specific or just hunt for fun, you really get to see what a natural reward smelling is for them.
For the last year and a half I have been involved in learning and assisting instructing Fun Nosework, which is having a dog search for either Birch, Anise, or Clove for fun. To watch these dogs have a blast doing what they do best is inspiring on some levels and just pure joy on others. The sport was founded after the idea of how bomb detection dogs work.
In recent months I found myself glued to the news waiting for the police to find one and possibly two missing girls in San Diego. As they recovered one girl, one still was missing. The sad part of all of this is that rescue and recovery dogs had been searching for this girl about six months prior and the dogs had alerted like crazy, but the police did not have enough belief in the dogs to listen...they finally recovered the body not very far from where the dogs had alerted.The entire story was covered by the LA times, I encourage you to read it.
Trust your dogs noses, they are much better than yours.
