Nosework (5/9)

Class tonight was very interesting.  Since so many of us are entered for the ORT this Saturday, we started with two container drills, using the odor that each of us is entered for.  Also Nova was there with Freea (black GSD) for me to handle.

First round, Gimme did great.  She found her Anise odor in 9.5 seconds!  She was focused and determined.

Second round, she started off a little distracted by the guy standing on the stairs timing everyone and Joyce had me swing her around to the start and begin again by taking her directly to the nearest box before letting the line feed out.  Well!  The Empress of the Cosmos was highly p.o.'d by that effrontery.  She stepped on, stomped on or pawed at - every box... some more than once!!!  She was definitely flipping the middle toenail at me.  She did finally settle down to trouncing the correct box, but not until she had thoroughly expressed her displeasure.

That's the first time we've seen that in 5 or 6 months.  She'd been doing so well dealing with distraction and frustration, so this kind of surprised me.  Even Joyce commented about how obviously annoyed and over-the-edge she was.  Fortunately I learned how to read her when she was doing this more frequently, so I knew how/when to call "alert".  I'm almost wondering if she wasn't primed to this response by smelling Freea on me, since I'd already handled her once at that point.

Fortunately, I won't really need to do anything but a potty walk with Freea before I handle Gimme at the ORT.  I'm going to ask that Nova attach her to the line, so that I get as little of her smell on me as possible and I can also wear gloves that I won't have on when I'm working with Gimme - just in case that was a factor in her acting out tonight. 

For the third run we did a room search - starting with a threshold hide on leash and then turned them loose to find the other hide off leash.  Gimme did really well with this - finding the threshold hide much faster than usual for thresholds.  Then she raced around the room a turn or two and found the second hide quickly.  Just as if there were no earlier disturbance in the force.

As far as handling Freea - it went really well.  She's a very sweet girl, but clearly a Momma's girl.  She didn't really warm up to me, but she was eager enough to work that once she knew that's what we were doing, she didn't care much about who was hanging on to the other end of the line.  She's a nice moderate speed girl and very methodical and direct.  Where Gimme got the first container in 9.5 seconds, Freea got it in 11.5 seconds.  In that time, Gimme made two turns around sniffing all 12 boxes the first time and then picking the right one the second time (in just 9.5 seconds!).  Freea, just went down the line until she got to the right one and stopped right there, giving a clear indication.  So I feel hopeful that I'll be able to do well with her on Saturday.  We are meeting tomorrow for a practice at the local Home Depot - then both girls get a day off before the ORT on Saturday.

BTW I picked up the car tonight.  Its nice and all brand spankin' clean.  Its fun to drive and I'm sure it'll do us well in the years to come.  Still have to figure out how I'll secure the crate in the back so it won't move around, but can still be taken in and out without a lot of trouble.  I'll work on that tomorrow, along with a dozen errands.