Gimme continues to do well in Ursula's classes. She's just a working maniac and learns new things so quickly. We are doing a lot to focus on the stimulus control aspect of things and I'm seeing progress all the time. Once she fully understands that concept - she'll be unstoppable.
Nosework class tonight was great - we did a field trip to Home Depot. We did all of it in the outdoor area, where they had a row of 6 garden sheds. The first session used the sheds, with hides in 4 of them (one had its door closed). As we approached them from where we parked, the hides were in the 1st, 3rd, 5th and 6th sheds. Gimme was really good and didn't take any time at all to find the hides. Interestingly she stepped into the second shed and immediately turned and walked out again - showing she knew there was nothing there. That was nice and clear and a skill she will need as we advance in this sport.
One of the things that was quite interesting was that each dog passed the 5th and 6th sheds, turned left as if to go to the plants area, and then would turn back to work the 6th shed and finish with the 5th shed. Not having effective noses ourselves, we humans don't know why the dogs all did that same pattern. It may have been that McDonald's was just up the street and as they came toward the end of the line of sheds, the breeze would curl around that corner and bring the McD smell to them. Could also have been the smell of the plants drew them to that area. It had to be something, because all six dogs did the exact same thing there.
The second session was three hides in the plants. Gimme was going first and I was wrong to give her too much line, so we got tangled in the bushes/trees. Gimme is so bold, she always just wants to clamber over/through to go direct to things if she can. I need to get better about anticipating what she's up to and calling her to come with me so I can take her around. One of the hides was very interesting, since there was a stiff paper/plastic tube (15" tall) around the base of one of the tree trunks and the hide was tucked up under the bottom edge. Gimme got the odor at the top of the tube and was quite insistent. She did a good job at this session and I was pleased because plant areas of HD in field trips we've done have proven challenging for her. I don't know why, unless they use a lot of fertilizer or something.
The next session was a simple set of four hides, with a tin stuck somewhere along the front support of the four sheds, 3rd through 6th. As we'd find one and were rewarding the dog, Joyce set the next one. Gimme got this really quickly. They were pretty easy hides, so lots of fun and very motivating for the dogs. Our job on this sequence was to work on how we take the dog away from odor. You don't really want to pull them away or use any cue, such as leave it. So instead as we were rewarding them, we'd use the reward to lure them away and into a new direction to continue searching. Gimme being the genius that she is, twice went immediately back to the one she'd just found. Meaning that she got more rewards and I got two extra practices at moving her away. She's so good to me.
The last hide was again along the front of those four sheds, but under the edge and out of sight so that it was blind to us. Gimme was pretty quick to find hers and just as I was about to nod to Joyce to get the okay to call "alert", she snaked a paw under and dragged the tin out. Apparently I wasn't responding quick enough and Gimme wanted to be sure I knew she found it.
After class I went to Costco about a block away and Gimme was sound asleep by the time I got there. Twelve hides is a LOT and the girl is exhausted. She's sound asleep now.
One thing I also want to mention is how well she is doing with our work on distraction. She's getting really good about sticking with things - much less squirting off. When I do need to reel her in, usually because she doesn't know the search area parameters, she has been great about just accepting it. I've really only seen one sign of clear frustration from her and that was last week in class when I was ignoring all her false alerts. So I'm very happy with the results of the way I approached this with Gimme and naturally am much more inclined to stick with my instincts in the future.
2 comments:
I wish I had a class for Wesley. He loves doing the box work. Gimme is doing great.
Too bad you don't. Still you ought to be able to train him on your own, at least through NW1 level. Its pretty simple at the lower level. Just a matter of working the dog through lots of experiences and places. If you watch your dog and learn how to read them, its pretty easy. Getting to higher levels gets a little more complicated - Joyce says at NW1 its all about the dogs. At NW2/3, its more about the handler.
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