Nosework 6/10

Its been unbearably hot around here, so we've laid off a few of our regular activities.  The other morning we went out to walk and in the space of 45 minutes, the temperature went up 12 degrees.  Candy assures me our temperatures are nothing.  She lives in Texas, so our blistering hot day time temps are just their cooled off night temps.  Still Gimme and I aren't used to it, so we've slowed down off our regular activities.  And we didn't go tracking last week because it was just too hot.

Before I talk about nosework class - I have some new information about our RallyFrEe videotaping.  I didn't mention it in the blog, but Gimme kept getting distracted at the third station, going ahead of me toward the equipment against the wall.  I didn't understand this, because she ignored the equipment everywhere else, against two full walls.  Later I remembered Diane noting how Valor didn't want to go near the same section of wall - so it occurred to me they were sensing the same thing, just reacting different. So, I had Tonya ask Gimme about it.  I had to picture it in my head so she'd know what I was talking about.  Then she told Tonya there was a little mouse in there somewhere and it was distracting her.  She volunteered her opinion about Valor, she said he's a big wussy for being scared of the little ole mouse.  ☺

BTW this was the third of our special energy healing sessions aimed at repairing damage caused by the seizures.  Tonya says Gimme is very aware of her memory issues and she's frustrated by it too. 

Nosework class last week was a little short. It was verrrrrry hot, so we just had two quick searches in the shade. 

Our first search was set up on these electrical boxes across the street, in the grass next to a sidewalk.  The first three boxes from the startline were only about 2 feet apart and then the fourth one was further away.  This put the hides 5 - 6 feet apart.  Gimme was the only dog to find them in order from the startline.  None of the dogs paid any attention to the fourth box.  However, she really struggled sourcing the third (tallest) one.  She knew there was a hide there, but kept looking for it on the shady side of the box.  Dorothy thought it had to do with the proximity of the other hides, but this has never been an issue for her before.  I thought it was because every time she came around and tried to get her nose up there, she was getting very bright sun straight in her eyes.  When I got her to come around the other way, then she got it. 

The second search was all underwater hides.  There were 18 plastic containers, roughly the size of a dog water dish.  Each had 2-3 inches of water in it; there were three hides.  Gimme had no trouble with these, though she did lose her turn just after finding the first hide for peeing in the search area.  She got taken to the van and had to wait until the other dogs had all run and then came back to try again. 

Gimme had no difficulty finding all three hides.  She was quite theatrical, showing repulsion for the spot where "somebody" peed in the search area.  Everyone laughed at her.  I took it as her effort to stay far away from the offending pee so she wouldn't succumb and repeat the baddie.