Gimme's Fast Nose

After our walk today I was going do a Home Depot field trip, but Linda and I spent too much time jabbering.  And since Linda had never seen Gimme do a nosework search - decided to set up a quick hide and let the girl demonstrate her prowess.

She started whining the moment I opened the jar - even though the car was all closed up and she was inside.  Its amazing how quickly that scent permeates and how certain she is that its important for her to be searching for it RIGHT NOW.  The wind was about 8-10 mph.

The first hide I set up was just about 40 feet from the car on the ground, with the tin tucked behind a scotch broom bush.  Scotch broom has a particularly strong and obnoxious odor of its own, but isn't as bad this time of year.  I started Gimme from a place upwind of it and let her head into the area and she had it in about 30 seconds.  Boyoh she was all over it. 

After that Linda set up two hides for us and I was careful not to watch.  Gimme kept trying to peek around the car and see where Linda was going with her tin.  The first hide was about 75 feet from us and I never even got to give her the "where-zit" cue.  The scent was blowing across it right toward us and Gimme was at a dead run dragging me behind her, stumbling and tripping, as I tried to keep up.  If she goes that fast for tracking -- I'm going to be in very big trouble.  As it is, my knee is killing me from running on such rough ground.  She was very persistent about that hide and really had to wait for me to get there.

The next hide I asked Linda to head toward and put the hide somewhere in an area on the near side of a big long pile of stumps.  We approached from upwind and Gimme took me around the back side of the pile, then down the edge of the road and was moving away from the area I'd designated.  In a search we have a clearly delineated area to search, so I let Gimme play out some line and then guided her back toward the area I knew it had to be in.  She made a couple circles around me and then headed toward the downwind end of the stump pile.  I knew she was in odor when she tried to climb onto the stump pile.  Then she thought better of it and came around the edge as if to approach from a different angle.  Suddenly snapped in the other direction and dived in under the edge of a stump to the tin...  She was so excited and so pleased with herself.

That was actually a very hard hide because the tin was tucked under the edge of a stump and protected from the breeze on three sides by the stump pile and some long grass on the other side.  Based on how Gimme acted, I'd say the scent was probably pooled right where the tin was and then some was drifting up and getting caught and blowing down the line of the pile.

There's a neat gadget called a wizard stick that is a hand held fog generator.  Joyce brought one to class and it was cool to see how the scent moved and how it "follows" you when you pass through it.  I'm thinking I'll have to get one just to see for times like this.  Its under $25 including s/h.

BTW this is only Gimme's second time doing an exterior area search.  Her first exterior search was at the match back in January.

She was very persistent about these hides and demanding me to get there and pay up.  I think the frustration she had going into and during the ORT may have been much more of a factor than her not understanding to persist.  Time will tell.  BTW at one of my stores I raided a cache of shoe boxes that were set to be crushed.  I got several boxes - five of which are identical.  They'll be very handy for our training here at home.