We've been staying busy. Naturally Christmas is a very big holiday for my work (American Greetings) and I am doing too much as usual. Gimme is totally unimpressed with me spending so much time sewing gifts. She thinks I should have started all this stuff back in January and not waited until the last minute. Clearly, sewing that interferes with what she thinks is the barest minimum amount acceptable for training is just wrong on so many levels.
I keep trying to tell her that a little break from training would be good for her and that she'll be more enthusiastic after the break is over. She's not buying it. If it weren't for the walks, she probably would have fired me by now. She is also concerned that I may not fully understand her pre-eminent and exalted position as Empress of the Cosmos. In any case, she is starting to express her creative cleverness at getting my attention in a somewhat naughty way - so I am making a special effort to resume daily training sessions. Obviously I don't want her going down THAT road.
Today's nosework class was fun. We had two container searches and then one interior search. There were 24 containers, mostly boxes, plus 4 chairs, one piece of luggage and 6 cookie containers (those clear plastic round ones that you get at the bakery). Some of the cookie containers were on the floor and some on chairs.
The first search had odor in one of the boxes and also in a cookie container on a chair. Gimme went full throttle, as always. Stomped a few boxes in passing, tried to convince me that one was it, but didn't hold to it when I started moving around her - then finally settled on destroying the right one. After that she stomped a couple more before finding the odor on the chair.
Joyce is not quite as amused by her box demolition as I am. You know me, I'm inclined to let her be who she is when it doesn't have long term consequences. Before long there will be no boxes except for the Clove ORT and she doesn't do that over-the-top indication with anything except boxes, so I don't see it as a big deal.
On our second round, odor was in the handle of the luggage and in another cookie container on a chair. As handlers we had to identify which of two handling tasks we were going to focus on. 1) to keep moving when the dog was indicating (something I've gotten really good at), or 2) keeping the line either consistently loose or taut. I chose keeping the line taut.
Gimme found both hides very quickly. I was so focused on the line handling that I wasn't ready with the treats fast enough for her first find on the luggage hide, so Gimme walked around to the other side where she was facing me, looked me in the eye and put a paw on it - just to be sure I was paying attention. The one on the chair came so quickly after that, so I didn't really get too engrossed in line handling and she got her steak treats fast enough to suit her.
Our third search was an interior search of the room. Gimme found odor in a corner and kept wanting to go back and re-indicate it for more treats. Early in their training we do pay them a second and even a third time for returning to a hide they've already found and then ususally pick it up. But then there comes a time when they are getting ready for level 2, that they have to learn they are only getting paid once on each hide and the hides stay down.
This is a change to the rules as Gimme sees it... so she was pretty persistent about trying to show me that hide again. Of course, she thinks I'm broken and just need to be given another chance to remember that I'm supposed to pay up. Basically I just got in her way a bit to discourage her from trying to find that one again and she finally moved on. Then she found the second hide very quickly. She tried to re-indicate it too, but moved on much quicker to go find the third hide.
She's a very smart cookie and it doesn't take her too much to figure out what does and what does not pay for Gimme.
Cross your fingers that tomorrow is not raining and that Mary gets off work in time, so Gimme & me and Mary & Grafton can meet for a walk. It'll probably be dark by the time we get together, but the walk around the lake (2 miles) is well lighted and so we do it whenever we can.
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