S4 E8: Equine Scent Detection with Dee Horwood & Cortney McCartney

This is the FINAL EPISODE of our Special Edition Season of An Equine Conversation on ‘What Else Is There?’ besides riding.

Last but by no means least, I’m absolutely delighted to welcome our Australian guests for the season, Dee Horwood & Cortney McCartney, owners of the business Scent Horses Australia.

Cortney is, I think, only the 2nd person we’ve had on the podcast who I’ve actually met in person, and lives only 2 hours from me. Not only that but Cortney’s horse, the one used to proof the scent detecting concept is a half sibling to my horse Rufus, so technically, we’re like extended family yea?

Dee & Cortney are joining me to share their story of getting involved in Equine Scent Detection training fun – a journey that was inspired by a conversation Cortney had when visiting Canada back in I think it was 2011. We’re talking about the awesomeness that is scent detecting with equines. This was such a fun conversation and these humans have such a great story.

I’m so excited to help raise the profile of what’s possible here & what these two awesome humans are getting up to.

At the end of the episode, stay tune for a bunch of end of Season announcements.

 

Dee Horwood & Cortney McCartney - Scent Horses Australia:

Cortney McCartney and Dee Horwood first met in 2003 whilst they were going through police recruit training. Both did a stint in Alice Springs General Duties Policing before transferring to specialist units.

Dee went to the Dog Operations Unit where she completed a 3 month drug detection course in Canberra with Australian Border Force. She completed further dog patrol courses with both the Northern Territory and New Zealand Police forces and a Therapy dog course. She is the first and only female Police dog handler to serve in Northern Territory Police forces Dog Operations Unit. 

Cortney went to the Mounted Police Unit, where she worked on improving the quality of service and support the Unit could provide to general duties officers and other specialised units. She attended and trained with the Western Australian Mounted Police and rode with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police Musical Ride. It was whilst Cortney was in Canada that she first heard of “sniffer horses”. 

Her curiosity got the better of her and she decided to see if she could train a horse to detect substances to help improve and enhance the Mounted Police’ capabilities. There was only one minor hiccup in her plan - she knew nothing about scent detection but knew that with the right guidance it could work.

It was just fortunate that Dee had transferred to Darwin and was located right next door to the Mounted Police Unit and thought the idea was awesome!

The pair worked together in their spare time training a 3 year old Morgan Horse named Red Bluff Andre who proved to be a keen participant and catapulted them down the path of sniffer horses which led to Scent Horses Australia about 11 years later.

 

What is ‘scent detecting’ with horses:

It is essentially capturing and using the horses ability to detect and follow scent particles in the air for our benefit. 

Horses have the ability to detect scents from ground level up to 2m high which rivals that of a dog. Whilst horses may never replace scenting dogs we can certainly use their keen sense of smell to our advantage.

But I’ll let Cortney & Dee share a whole lot more with you in the episode.

 

In this episode we discuss:

1:23 - episode introduction

3:20 - introducing Cortney, Dee and equine scent detection

7:47 - what is equine scent work

9.07 - how Dee & Cortney got into equine scent detection

12:47 - when did it all start for you

14:35 - how it went from the start of testing the concept with Andre

17:49 - Andre’s training prior to this

18:25 - learning how to learn

19:30 - how...