We did our first field trip today - I was so eager to do it that I did it before going to work. Gimme was eager too when she saw it was the Home Depot parking lot. She loves it there because the staff all pet her and some of them give her cookies. A couple are dog people and actually make her sit before giving up their cookies - which she humors them and promptly sits while dusting the floor with her tail.
The nosework went very well. I took a couple pictures and two videos. Sadly my computer is being uncooperative and is now insisting that it can't recognize my little removable drive. I've never had a problem before. I'm waiting for my computer guru to call and walk me through a solution.
Our first hide was in the lighting department, tucked into one of the steel rack supports and she found that one very quickly. The video was only 56 seconds and shows a great "snap back" at the end. That's where she goes quickly past the hide and then suddenly gets the drift of the scent and turns sharply back to it. I'd forgotten to take the painter's tape, so even though I'd put the q-tips in a spot I thought was inaccessible, she still got to them and ate two of the three along with her piece of cheese.
Our second hide was in the lumber aisle, underneath one of the steel supports. This video was 3:50, but there is extra at the beginning and end. I'd set a perimeter in my mind that actually covered a fairly large area. I need to check the rules and see what the test dimensions are. If she was over time it wasn't by much. I know cut wood can have a strong odor, so that may explain why it took her so long. Then again, it may be that eating odor q-tips interferes with her scenting ability.
After that Gimme went back to the car while I moved the hides and did some shopping. Ended up talking to some employees who were interested in what we were doing. I told them it was "search training", letting them make their own assumptions. They love her in that store, so I doubt it would matter - she has a sizable chapter of fans there, since they've watched her grow up from her first orange chariot ride until now.
We actually had an audience for her third and fourth hides. Everyone was naturally impressed with her abilities. One guy talked to me quite a bit after we were done and he thinks she is just beautiful - obviously an astute grasp of the obvious. I was telling him how everyone is always so attracted to her and he said its because of her eyes, describing them as "alluring". I wouldn't have come up with that word, but he's right, she does have beautiful eyes. Naturally Gimme and me think he's brilliant.
Our third hide was in the tool rental section - stuck to the side of a metal cabinet. Its not a very big area, but has a lot of tough smells - oils, fuels, solvents and general tool/machine smells. It took her a little while, but she did find the hide. Again she blasted by it and then there was the snap back...
The last hide was unpaired and in an appliance and cabinet sale area. I took her in from the opposite end and she missed the spot I'd stuck the scent during the first and second passes. When I gave her a little guidance coming back at it from a different direction she went right to it. I think that its possible during a test/ORT that if she hasn't found the scent during her first pass, that it might be a good idea to take her around the perimeter in a different direction (i.e. clockwise v.s. counter-clockwise). We can just never know which way the scent is flowing and how it eddies and pools here and there.
I've noticed that Gimme is slower to find scent that is close to the ground, so I did put all four of these close to the ground - the highest one was no more than 12" from the floor. I'll keep working on the video and see if I can get my computer to recognize the drive again.
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