Moray dog trainer Megan says pets love scent sport 'mantrailing'

Megan Stuart-Bass, 32, helped her spaniel overcome anxiety and in the process found her way into a new career as a trainer, running classes called Dog Smart With Megan.

As well as 11-year-old springer Jaffa, Megan also has Jacob, an eight-year-old cockapoo.

Megan working in the field with a golden retriever. — Megan working in the field with a golden retriever and owner.

Here’s what Megan, from Forres, had to say about Jaffa:

I started out doing an HND in human psychology and I was going to do a degree.

But I was having issues with my dog and at the same time was not enjoying college study.

I got some help for Jaffa, it was about nine years ago now, but I thought, I wonder if there are any courses about learning more about the psychology of dogs, just for me.

I was thinking, why is she like this, what’s going on with her? So I did a Diploma in Canine Behaviour.

Megan walking in a field with dogs and their owners. — Dog Smart With Megan in action with owners and their dogs.

I initially started in the dog world with behaviour. I did that for a while and then got quite burned out, working with a lot of emotions for the dogs and the humans.

Then I came across scent sports. We always hear about agility and fly ball and things like that. But we never think about sports using the dog’s nose.

‘Scent sports are a lot of fun’

Mantrailing is essentially getting the dog to search for a ‘missing’ person.

We don’t search for real missing people but it’s the same as what operational dogs would do. We just do it for sport, it’s a lot of fun.

It can be massively confidence boosting. With dogs that are anxious, it’s a really fun, naturally good sport for them.

They can then take it to environments that they’re nervous about, say car parks or maybe they are nervous about noises.

We can then do that fun thing in that environment. They can overcome quite a lot of fears, there are loads of benefits.

A small black curly-haired dog finds something in a box on the grass while taking part in scent sport mantrailing. — A dog has fun sniffing out something that’s been hidden in boxes in the field.

‘We have a natural affinity with dogs’

We have developed as humans to work alongside dogs so it’s common for us to have a natural affinity towards them.

They’re constantly optimistic, resilient and don’t judge. They just love you and want to do things with you all the time.

They’re always so pleased if you give them the tiniest task.

I think that’s what I love the most. I never had a dog growing up. My mum was allergic to dogs, so Jaffa, my eldest, is my first dog.

An Alsation-type dog sniffs different containers placed on the ground. — A dog sniffs different containers placed on the ground in an exercise that uses their nose and their brain.

She was a naturally anxious dog. She would just stare at me when we were outside and people would say, wow, she’s so well trained.

And I’d be like, no, she’s just terrified of doing anything else.

It’s not because we ever did anything bad to her.

She was just naturally very anxious and until I started to learn more, I had no idea what caused that or how to fix it.

A Yorkshire Terrier-type dog sniffs a vehicle while mantrailing - looking for a pretend missing person. — A little dog sniffs some machinery while out ‘mantrailing’ using the same skills as if looking for a missing person.

Scent sports was one of the biggest things that got her out of her shell. It’s a lot about independence.

So that was a big thing for her. It changed her demeanour. She got more confident about her own actions.

She didn’t fear trying new things and the more she tried and was successful, the happier she was. She was like, I’m pretty good at this. I can do stuff without my mum!