Nosework (2/3)

Gimme was sure glad to be back in class tonight.  Her first session did not show off her innate talent, since she was all over the place after finding the first hide on the threshold.  Second and third sessions were much better.   Clearly two weeks off is too much time off from nosework for this girlie.

Our first session used the whole room.  We each brought in "stuff" from our cars, which was scattered all over the room.  The actual hides were pretty much on the perimeter.  The second session we moved all the stuff and barriers so it was all against the walls and the hides were against the walls too and in the stuff.  Both of these had threshold hides to start with and Gimme did a much better job finding them than she has in the past.  I hope that trend continues as that has been her weakest skill.  For the third session, all the stuff was moved to the center of the room, in one long line with 6-8 inches between the different things.  The hides were hidden in the stuff; no threshold hide for this session.

One thing that was different was that about half of the hides used a little blue plastic container instead of a tin.  It was an empty dental floss holder and even without any extra holes the dogs could still smell the odor through the cracks in the plastic around the top.

Also, though not planned for, each of the dogs was potentially tempted by food.  I'd brought in my work bag and had forgotten it had a granola bar (sealed in wrapper) inside it.  There was no sign that any of the dogs paid any special attention to it.  Gimme and one other dog snooped around a bag of treats on the desk and Gimme took time to investigate the motherload, where we all leave our containers of treats for our instructor to use while setting up our hides.

Today between my two stores, it was nice enough that Gimme and I did a little heeling session in the parking lot.  We haven't practiced outside in about two months and she did a good job.  I'd lose her attention briefly as she'd see something, but she always stayed pretty much in heel position and brought her attention back to me on her own.   She's a good girl and doesn't even mind sitting her heiney down on cold wet pavement.

Our snow is almost entirely gone.  It rained a LOT yesterday.  We'd gone to the fort's training area for a woods walk and fortunately were on the way back to the car when it started raining (from a 4mi walk).  She really needed that walk, as did I.  There was plenty of snow back in the woods for her to play in and she had a great time at it. 

When we were about a quarter mile from the car, the driving wind, sleet and freezing rain started up.  Gimme would run ahead and find a tree to stand under and behind and wait until I got close, then would run ahead again.  She's no dummy.  I pulled my hood down over my face and stayed on the road by looking down at the road and making sure I stayed in the tire "track".  My chin wasn't covered and I discovered later that it has several scratches on it from the sleet hitting so fast due to the wind.  I had to really lean into it.  When Gimme's going ahead got her to the car... she started barking at me to get my ass moving.  She dove into her crate and curled up in the very back, trying to get warm again.  Brrrrrrr...