Nosework is a popular new trend, especially in the dog training world (though I've just started practicing with my cat, too!), for teaching animals to use their nose to locate treats or other scents. One reason it has become so popular is that animals seem to love it! It is a great way to enrich our pets by making them do what they would do naturally: seek out their food. But wouldn't they just be happier to have a bowl of food delivered them?
It turns out most animals prefer to work for their food. Watch this clip of two dogs searching the house for hidden pieces of salami. Do you think they are happiest while searching? Or when they find a treat?
We might assume that reaching the final goal and eating a piece of salami would make the dog happiest. But research indicates otherwise.
One experiment tracked dopamine, a chemical that that sends messages between brain cells, in the brains of rats trained to press a lever to receive a sugary treat. Dopamine is known as a "feel-good" neurotransmitter, so we might hypothesize that dopamine levels would increase when the rat starts eating it's treat.
The researchers found that dopamine levels began skyrocketing when the lever became available (indicated by a light turning on). The chemical peaked just after the rat pressed the lever, and steeply declined while they enjoyed their treat.
The level of dopamine seen in this chart can also be read as the animal's excitement level. If we could read the rat's thoughts, the sequence might look something like this:
The rat seems to be the most excited during his search and successfully achieving his goal. Eating the treat actually calms him down.
Dopamine doesn't just make us feel happy; it is a motivational driver that causes us to want and seek out something desirable. This seeking phase is just like the dogs as they sniffed out salami. Their tails wagging furiously made it obvious how much fun they were having. Through research like this, we learned that the "feel-good" quality of dopamine isn't necessarily due to the reward we wanted. We feel best when dopamine drives us to work harder to seek out what we want. Just the promise of something good causes us to get excited.
At the Museum, I see this excitement at the beginning of training sessions. Just walking by Carson's mew elicits the hawk's excited vocalizations as she hops back and forth on the perch. You may have witnessed this excitement with your pets at home. A dog jumping excitedly when you bring out the leash. A cat pacing when she hears the can of food crack open. Or a bunny running in circles when I announce that it's time for bed:
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