Well, it isn’t just luck-based. In fact, smell is the weakest of the three senses (besides having no easy counter). You can keep a mental note of Cobb’s position and kite him around the map by listening for the sniffing sounds. Plan how you move around the map based on that, and come up with other strategies when it’s mixed with other senses.
I do think it’d be cool to add a way to mask your scent temporarily, but that’ll have to be for the remake.