Scent Seeking Missile

"Scent Seeking Missile" was one of the judge's comments about Miss Gimme, who qualified today, being the fifth Dalmatian to get a NW1 title.  There are as of yet, no Dalmatians with a NW2 title.  I'm signing her up for the anise ORT on December 1st and then will try to get her in a trial as soon as I can.

Our day started out at 3:00 a.m. with her waking me because she had diarrhea, and then again at 6:00 a.m. for a repeat episode.  At the trial she had two more episodes and then that cleaned her out and she was fine for the rest of the day.  I know what it was from, so it was just a matter of seeing if she was ready to hunt.  She seemed fine and every indication was that she wanted to play.

She was in season and had to wear panties for her searches, but at least didn't have to wait until the end of the day and do all four searches back-to-back, as I'd been led to expect.  They started by running all the dogs through the exterior search, one after another... then all through the vehicle element.  Then the two girls in season came through and did those two elements.

Gimme wasn't very interested in the practice boxes, so I wasn't entirely confident that she wanted to play.  For the EXTERIOR search, Gimme buzzed right by the odor (not at threshold) and I missed the nose tilt, though the judge saw it.  So then she went all through the exterior search area, looking everywhere.  When they called the 30 second warning, I walked her into an area she didn't pay much attention to and repeated the cue "wherezit" followed by "show me" and she went right to it and paw whacked it.  It took her less that 10 seconds, when I essentially re-started her, so her time was 2:39.67...  It didn't seem to take more than thirty minutes to me.  It occurs to me to wonder if she hasn't decided that the real cue to find odor is "show me" and that "wherezit" means blast off the start line.  So I'll be watching that and considering that possibilty in the weeks to come.  The judge's comments were:

"Nice line handling.  Don't block dog w/ your body.  Don't plant your foot and stop!  Nice change of behavior, then went out of odor & went into hunt mode.  If you see the COB, take her back for alert.  Solid alert once she was @ pin point."

I appreciate the comment about line handling, since most of the time I do think I do that well.  I didn't intentionally block her, sometimes she just moves too fast and changes direction and I am not nimble enough to get out of her way.  I'm really not aware of planting my foot - wish I had that on video.  I totally missed the first nose tilt.  I think for the next few classes I'm going to make it a point to watch only her nose and see if I can get better at seeing her doing the nose tilt.  Sometimes I see it and sometimes I don't.

Next was the VEHICLE element which Gimme did a stellar job on.  She went right along the side and around the back of the nearest vehicle without even looking at it - instead looking off to her right.  She passed by the space between the first and second without looking at that and I was worried that I didn't have her attention even though she wasn't really leaving the vehicles, then she turned to the truck and started sniffing the bumper.  She had her paws up on it walking back and forth along it.  Got down and started up the side, checked out the wheel well and then turned back to the bumper.  Got her paws up and sniffed again and then gently lifted and tapped her paw in one spot and I called alert.  She did that in 25.58 seconds and got a third place for her efforts.  The judge really liked her and said:

"Great Job!  Good Team!  * Warning about food drop - you were last dog and away from hide, but still in search area :-) "

The food drop was a tiny crumb that fell while I was trying to put her regular leash back on her.  They are getting really strict (weirdly so, in my opinion) about making sure we immediately get the dogs back on a 6 foot leash (no longer than 6 feet allowed) before  leaving the search area.  I had to put her back on the 6 foot leash between the exterior and vehicle searches, even though there was no delay/wait and no other dog within 100 yards and even though she was already attached to a line with her harness.  Since I'd never run into that before, I was fumbling to get it done.  Clearly something I'll need to practice in classes. 

We had a long wait between those and my afternoon searches.  Next up was the CONTAINER element.  I was really worried about this because the room was so small that even using the star pattern, some of the boxes were just a foot from the wall.  I knew it was going to be hard for me to move around and not step on boxes and was worried about the possibility of fringe odor.  While I was challenged to keep moving and keep my feet off the boxes, I need not have worried about Gimme.  She gave me a couple of half-hearted false alerts to see if I'd fall for it and stepped on an extra box, but when it was clear that I wasn't paying for no junk, she kept searching.  When she came on the right one she reared up and pounced on it with her two front feet, crushing it and then proceeded to shred it.  I called alert and in just 27.55 seconds, that was that.  As I was feeding her, the judge commented about how "clear" Gimme's indication was.  I'll say - when Gimme starts demolishing a box, call alert.  This is the same judge that we had for vehicles, so she got to see our two best searches and put us down for pronounced on both of them.  Her written comments were:

"Gimme the scent seeking missile!  Great energy, fun to watch.  You handle her well.  :-)  Good Job!"

Last was the INTERIOR element.  This was off lead and Gimme made a couple of quick loops and settled into searching near a table and two chairs.  She left ever so briefly once after that, but only moved two feet before riveting back on it.  She really stayed at it detailing and trying to find out exactly where the odor was... the two chairs were too close together and she couldn't totally get to where the odor was and I didn't think to ask to move the chairs... but not being shy about such things, Gimme finally pushed one out of the way.  Then she got her nose on odor and her paw was a half second behind it.  Her toenails were pointed exactly where the odor was - this in 53.87 seconds.  The judge put us down for a pronounced on this search.  Her comments were:

"Nice change of behavior and commitment to odor.  Very enthusiastic and quite clear when in odor.  Good job."

I didn't realize until I was writing this up that we had gotten "pronounced" on three of the four searches.  That's very nice.  If you get pronounced on all four, you get special recognition during the award ceremony.  Only one dog tonight got that.  Out of 35 dogs entered, only 12 got their titles (including both girls in season).  I am sooooo glad I didn't chicken out.

Gimme has been sound asleep ever since we left the grounds.  She gets up to move if I leave the room, but it takes her awhile to realize I've moved.  Once she was laying across my lap, like a big heavy blanket, breathing so deeply.  I called her name a couple times to try and wake her up and she slept through it.  Then about ten seconds later, she suddenly startled and woke up to look at me - it took that long for her name to register through that sleepy girl brain.

Anyway, I am very pleased and proud of my girl.  I think she will enjoy the more challenging training for NW2 and NW3...