I was so tempted to name this post "The Magic Wallet". I managed to drive out of the place where we held our nosework field trip, leaving my wallet on top of the car. Got home and fished around in the passenger seat for it, then realized what I'd done. I immediately prayed to find it and drove the 6 miles back to the sports complex. Then sloooooowly drove home looking along the road for it... and didn't see it.
You can imagine my angst, knowing all the things in my wallet and that I'm away from home this weekend and would need my VISA card. I almost broke down in tears, when a little voice said, "but you didn't check the top of the car before heading out, maybe it was still there and you lost it in the alley". So first, feeling foolish, I got out and checked the roof of the car. Not there. Then feeling even more foolish, I drove slowly down the alley with my high beams. And there it was in the middle of the road, right after I'd turned out of the alley! Everything still in it...
God is good. He seems to be particularly good to this old fool. You'd think I'd be cured of leaving things on top of my car given the last time it was a friend's 3 dog training DVDs. We never found those and the replacement cost came in at precisely $101... a notable number for a Dalmatian lover. So my new mantra is: "I will not set things on top of the car... I will not set things on top of the car... I will not set things on top of the car... I will not set things on top of the car... I will not set things on top of the car..."
Nosework class was interesting and fun as usual. We worked in a picnic pavilion, a six-sided covered area on cement. Joyce set 7 hides (4 of them on the undersides of picnic tables/benches) and we had 4 minutes to find as many as we could. Each dog entered from a different side in turn. We were to hold them in the area, because each side had a hide that would be threshold. After they found the threshold, then the dog could search wherever they wanted.
Gimme found 5 of the 7. It was a difficult search for three reasons. First, there was almost no air movement and yet we were not in an enclosed space - like we are when we search indoors. Second, the dogs had to find the hides, which were essentially 7 pooling and slowly expanding overlapping circles. Third, there was a lot of foot traffic going by and some of them were with dogs. Gimme was most distracted by "ooooh a Dalmatian, can we pet her?". Being the social butterfly that she is, Gimme kept turning when she heard that "cue". My classmates were running interference, keeping people from interrupting our search. Still is was distracting. The two hides she didn't find in the allotted time were the two nearest the walkway. My classmates also became adept at explaining, "Yes they are brown spots, its called liver..." We all ran interference for our two severely dog-reactive classmates.
After our search, I let a toddler pet her. She had the highest pitch squeal and every time Gimme moved she would squeal. The first time Gimme gave her the funniest look, like she thought she was clearly aberrant. After that she ignored the squeals. She got petted by three more people on the way back to the car. My little beauty-queen never fails to attract attention.
For the second search, Joyce set up one hide at a time on one of two tables, for a total of three hides. We were again practicing finding things under tables/benches. Gimme continues to be good at this. For one of them, she kept trying to approach from the side, the direction of the tiny breeze, but the bench was in the way. So bim-bada-boom, she leapt up on top of the table and indicated from there. Not shy, not my little girl.
The discussion we had was about "detailing". Apparently the instructors have decided that much detailing is not a good thing - not efficient. "Efficiency" does seem to be the current buzz/focus. Joyce said that the instructors are seeing more detailing (i.e. not going direct) when they are unpaired. She suggested that we each try three box drills paired and three unpaired and see if we see the same thing. This I will do, but probably not before the weekend.
Gimme is currently sound asleep. Nosework always zonks her out.
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