Nosework (3/2)

Since its light out later and the weather is improving, all our searches were outside - though it was still pretty brisk. 

We had two back-to-back exterior searches.  One was a smallish area and Gimme got caught up in lingering odor from the prior class' second hide.  Also, to be fair to her, the actual odor source was blowing right over it, so she was getting fresh odor as well.  When I didn't pay for it, she then tracked it down to source.  Fortunately we should never get lingering odor in a trial, because she believed it and was indicating like it was the real deal - so I would have called it.

For the second of the two searches, it was a very large area.  Gimme went past the near hide and got to the farther one very quickly.  Then she moved away, got another lingering odor and followed the scent plume out to its end and back again before locating the other hide.  She's done this before and I've heard from several knowledgeable sources, some dogs just hunt using this technique, so I don't worry about it.

For our second run, they moved the first hide in the small area, as well as the near hide from the large area.  Gimme went to where she'd found it before and then quickly sourced it to the place she'd caught lingering before - giving me a look to say, "see, I told you it was here."  The larger area she also went to the near location where she'd found it before, went pretty directly to the one which hadn't moved, then went on to quickly locate the new one (lingering she'd found before). 

This is kind of hard to describe and so don't feel bad if you can't picture this.  It was frustrating to me because she was getting caught up in lingering and buying into it.  On a positive note, Dorothy pointed out a thing Gimme does where she swings her head/shoulders back and forth very quickly when she is trying to make a decision.  Whether the decision is between two odors or what, its just a tell which says she's at a decision point and I'd never noticed it before.  Dorothy saw her do it twice on these searches and I missed it both times.

However our third search was vehicles and she did it right off the startline.  She was facing the rear end of a vehicle and the breeze was blowing from about 10 o'clock.  These were two vans set bumper to bumper, with odor on both bumpers.  This is the same hide she did so well on at Nooksack.  From where we started, she could actually have been getting both odors.  She finally decided on going up the near side, but not before I got her all tangled up in her line.  She found the first hide very quickly, then passed between the two bumpers and up the far side... when she got to the other end, somewhat in the lee of the building, she followed the plume directly to the second hide.  It was pretty nice to see.

Our class discussion was about the affect of cold on scent.  Which then morphed to cold and moisture and from there to hydration for the dog.  With my recent weekend experience, I introduced the hydration issue and it was nice to talk about it.  On the way home I was contemplating other things I could do to get Gimme to drink more water if I ever leave home unprepared again.  Given how much she loves peanut butter, I could simply smear a bit on the bottom of the dish and cover it with water.  She'd have to drink the water to get to it.