Nosework (2/5)

What an interesting class.  We only got two sessions. 

The first session had three hides and Gimme was a bit lackadaisical about finding them.  However, I have to admit I managed to leave the car without peanut butter in my pocket - so she likely knew Mom wasn't paying with the good stuff.  Plus she had her panties on and wasn't too thrilled about that.  She did find the hides, but not in the flashy way she normally does.

For the second session we did a test of what/how they indicate hides and whether they stick.  The odor was on the center front underside of the middle chair of five.  This time, Joyce had us not move at all and that really threw all the dogs.  It was like they weren't sure what to do if we weren't moving around. 

That is a variable we'll have to work through.  The idea is to get the dogs so they aren't trying to use our movement or lack thereof as a clue to where the hide is or when they are on the right track.  We've always tended to move around and last week Joyce had us keep moving no matter what the dog did.  Our human tendency when they get close is to stop and orient toward the odor - dogs are body language experts (step aside Tonya Reiman), so they see any change in our movement as a big red flag.  Now we threw another variable at them, for the first time not moving, and it did make all the dogs uncertain - it was like they suddenly didn't think they could move all the way across the room.   Even Gimme, who is quite content to be 50 yards from me on the trail.

Anyway, Gimme was the fifth dog to run and the only one that found and persisted at the odor without Joyce turning the chairs on their backs.  So that is certainly encouraging - since I've always thought she had more confidence than the others.  And, since this was our last hide for the evening (because it took so long for the dogs), Joyce had moved the odor to the end chair so it would be a blind hide for me. 

Happily I saw Gimme's drive-by tell... she actually paused ever so briefly before moving on.  So I'm not completely incompetent at reading her.  Then a minute later she came back to it and paused even longer, so I paid up.  She didn't paw at this, but given the big difference of me not moving, that doesn't surprise me.

You can sure bet I'll keep my heiney moving on Sunday.  Keep all your fingers, toes and/or paws crossed for us this Sunday.