We're starting something new with Pandora's Winter 2022 litter! It's called Early Scent Introduction, or ESI. The brains of newborn puppies go through massive changes during the first few weeks of their life, and ESI has been shown to be very beneficial to their development. It helps with nose awareness and confidence, and enhances their ability to identify and react to scents.

Early Scent Introduction is performed in conjunction with Bio-Sensor training on the puppies from day three thru day sixteen. A different scent is introduced to the puppy each day for short intervals. Their reaction to the scent is then recorded. A positive reaction is when a puppy will try to move towards the scent with their nose highly engaged in the scent. A negative reaction will have the puppy pulling back from the scent. A neutral reaction will be when the puppy does not seem interested or disinterested.

The benefits of ESI have been studied in a seven-year breeding test. Gayle Watson PhD conducted the test. They broke down the litters to the dogs that had early scent detection and those that did not. She began her testing by looking at results from sporting Golden Retrievers here in the United States. Gayle and her team charted the outcome of various events to determine the effect the ESI had on the pups. The results were astounding! They found the dogs that had been involved in early scent introduction had more total scenting titles. Along with the titles were earned in more complex scenting categories. Another amazing fact that came from the research was that the dogs were achieving these titles two and a half to five years younger than the non ESI pups.