NW Practice

I intended to get in a practice yesterday, but I couldn't get to it before Public Dog class and I didn't think she had enough brain left to do it afterward.  Not wanting to do it close to trial day, I decided to do it tonight. I set up three inaccessible hides - one in my bedroom nightstand, one in a block of modeling clay on top of the faucet in the bathroom, and one stuck to the pan under the magic crate in the living room.  She did a nice job all around.

Gimme started by running all over scanning all the rooms one after the other and not settling down.  Partly I think this is because we haven't done searches at home in forever.  It may also be because I woke her out a sound asleep snooze to search, so she wasn't focused yet.  And lastly, because I let her.  After she had scanned each room twice, I used casual your-Mom-is-a-clutz-and-in-the-way body blocking to keep her in each room.

The first room she went in after I decided to block her was the bedroom.  I really thought she was going to find that one right away as she had her nose very near it early on.  The nightstand is right inside the door, so it was a threshold hide.  She never went into the walk-in closet at the far end of the room, where I've hidden odor before.  She got stuck on the edge of the door and even pawed at the doorknob twice.  I was not using gloves or tweezers and while I don't remember touching the door, I must have, transferring odor - bad me.  She finally found source though and got rewarded with a nice big chunk of chicken.

I closed the bedroom door as we left and she next went in the bathroom.  Since the hide was in the tub end that would be obscured by the door, I walked in and shut the door behind me.  Gimme found out pretty quickly that the odor was in the tub, but no way was she going in THERE.  As she focused her attention on the correct end of the tub I moved some things out of her way and she managed to streeeeetch her neck out to where the odor was and then just lifted her paw toward it.  It was awkward, so I accepted that as close enough and rewarded her close to odor.

Next we went to the living room and this time she trotted all around scanning the room.  On the third pass she found it and neatly pawed right on the front edge pointing exactly where the tin was hidden 6 inches in. 

An interesting note - I wondered how she would do with the bathroom hide, since she has developed a concern about that room.  I saw no sign that she even thought of it while she was in search mode.  I've continued my desensitizing program of just tossing treats on the floor in there from time to time.  She is tending to check it out more often.  We've done the peanut butter licking thing three times and one of them she stayed in the room afterward while I took a bath, even though the door was open enough for her to leave.  She used to always snooze on the big fluffly dog bed in there while I bathed.  I hope we get it back - I like seeing her contentedly snoozing nearby.

It occurs to me that I may freeshape her to get in and out of the tub on her own.  She never gets baths, so I'm sure she hasn't any lasting objection.  I used to keep my dogs' water bowl in the bathroom when I lived in Alabama (until they got too old to get in and out of the tub easily).  If it ran dry, Anthony would wait in the tub for me to refill it. 

Once I had a dinner party and had pulled the shower curtain to hide the stained grout.  All was going well and only one chicken fillet had been stolen, everyone was happy and having fun.  Suddenly there was a blood curdling scream coming from the bathroom.  It seems the bowl was empty and Anthony had been patiently waiting for a long time.  When someone came in and didn't reach in to turn on the tub and refill the bowl - he stuck his head out and goosed a bare bumm. 

Living with dogs is such great fun, doncha think...