Nosework (5/5)

Gimme and I have been verrrrry busy this week.

We've been down to walk around Capitol Lake twice.  I timed it to hit the quieter times, so we saw less dogs and that has interesting results.  Gimme has more time to settle down between sightings, but on the other hand, seeing less dogs makes it more like sudden environmental change - so it concerns her more.  Still she is doing very well with it.  And incidentally we are getting some good loose leash walking practice.

Last night we had our first Targeting & Shaping class with Ursula - starting the first of ten weeks of class.  We'll be hitting that class every Tuesday and then the 7:00 p.m. class on Thursdays.  Plus she has nosework class on Wednesday.   We also try to get out to the fort two or three times a week.  Plus I train about five days a week... sometimes only three minutes and other times more.  As you can see, Gimme is a very busy girl.  She really thrives on having a lot to do. 

Ursula has a different approach to targeting than I've seen before and I really like it.  I was always taught that each targeting prop had a different cue and if you wanted a different behavior, then the props needed to be somewhat different.  The way Ursula teaches it, there are only two targeting behaviors - nose touch and paw touch - so, only two cues (touch and paw).  The goal being that if I point at something and say "touch", Gimme is supposed to touch it with her nose and if I say "paw" then she should paw at it or put her paws on it.  So then its a simple matter of transferring the behavior to different items, making slight changes and putting a new cue on it.  Its very versatile.  Since Gimme already has a lot of targeting experience, she picked up this new way of doing it verrrrrry quickly.  I am focusing on nose "touch" first through all the skill levels, because she's so paw oriented that I want that skill to be solid first. 

At home I am also teaching her (free shaping) to pick up things and bring them to me.  So far we've worked with a slipper, tug toy, tiny rubber cone and a stapler.  I want her to understand the concept of pick it up and "bring" it to me.  Then later I'll just attach names to things and she will be able to bring me specific things.  After the first item, each time she got faster and faster at going from a click to sniff it through to putting it in my hand.  The stapler proved to be the hardest for her, because she didn't know how to pick it up; I think because it moves some.  We didn't get that to my hand, but she was actually picking it up and I jackpotted with all the treats I had left, since it concerned her.   Then ended the session, leaving her to percolate on how rewarding it was to do that hard thing.

Nosework class tonight was very interesting.  We had two sessions of hides.  For the first session, we had basically four piles of weird stuff and the room was made smaller by using the dividers to cordon off part of the room.  There would be one hide out at a time and when the dog found it, we rewarded at source.  Then we'd take them back to the start line and while we were doing that, Joyce was putting out another hide, so we used each of the four piles.  The goal was to watch the dog for "tells" that show when they are in odor.  Gimme tends to air scent and then when she's on it, her travel becomes very direct and her head comes down more.  Of course, that change in head carriage may be a bit different when the hides are up higher.

The second session we moved most of the stuff away and had three lines of six things... with a fair number of tall things.  Joyce put out two hides and they never changed.  We brought the dog in and sent them to search.  After they found the second hide, we took them to the other end of the room and sent them again.  I was just sure the dogs would all go right back to where they'd already found the odor, but Joyce said they wouldn't and she was right.  She said they are searching based on scent and don't really focus in on a particular sight picture in one try - though they might if we repeated it several times.  The goal was to watch and see how the dog uses odor pooling and bouncing off tall things to hone in on source odor.  Gimme didn't do that much the first round because she just found them too quickly.  The second time coming from the other end of the room she did it more on one of them.  Joyce had said it would be a very different search for them just changing our starting point and that proved to be true as well.

Gimme has been sound asleep ever since I put her back in the car the second time and is now asleep under the desk.  Its interesting she can train and have activities before nosework and still have enough energy and focus to do nosework, but never the reverse.  I never try to come home from class and train anymore.  I did once and it was clear there was just no one home.  So she'll get rest for the rest of the day and all of tomorrow so she can be fresh for class tomorrow night.