Nosework (2/12)

I'm determined to get this blogged about sooner... so here it is, for Tuesday August 25th. 

It was very much like the set-up from last week.  All four hides were out the whole time.  The hide on the corner of the tent and the corner of the table (tan) were both at floor level.  The hide on the chair was at seat level.  They also placed a chair under the canopy to give the scent some surface to bounce on. A couple of dogs became obsessed with the chair under the canopy, even though
they'd found the suspended hide
from the week before.

Gimme had no trouble.  She went right by the chair near the start, but didn't pause, before going down the left side of the room and across the far wall to get the table hide.  From there she found the hide on the canopy leg.  She briefly sniffed the chair under the canopy and then went straight to the suspended hide.  I started a circuit around the perimeter and barely got moving before she found the chair hide on her own.  She was mega fast.

Our next search was an exterior area, delineated by a bunch of small cones.  There was a lot of construction stuff off the left side and a log with other attractive stuff on the far end.  The search area contained a small pallet, three chairs, various pieces of small pipe on the ground, one medium cone, and a stack of 4 large cones. The two things with overlapping tan circles are those large wire spools.  The hide was under the edge of the larger one.  For those of us at level 3, it was blind and we didn't know how many hides there were.

Gimme was attracted to all the stuff outside the search area, but didn't get stuck on it and came back in when I gently encouraged her.  She found the hide on the spool really quickly.  Then she became interested in the spool with the green dot.  She'd leave it and then head back to it.  She was looking at me now and then, as if to see if I was interested in it, but my sense was she was just goofing off.  I was careful not to "sell" her on it and the third time she left it I decided there was no more to be found and called "finished".  I was right - yeahhhhh - it almost looks like I'm getting better at reading her.  Several of the dogs were really attracted to the green-dot-spool and we have no idea why.  Dorothy thought maybe the landlord's dog pees on it, since much of this was his construction stuff.

For the third search, it wasn't blind and there were two hides.  They removed the big spool entirely and placed hides on the chair and the between the edges on the stack of larger cones.  Gimme found the first one very quickly (cones) and then moved off to look around briefly then went back to it.  I told her to find me another one and then she looked again and found the one on the chair.  At no time did she stop at the green-dot-spool, though she did wave her nose toward it once in passing.

Both alerts were definite and there was no hesitation or looking to me for confirmation when she was sourcing.  I'm getting the idea of how she looks when she's just trying to find another hide and picking the next best thing because we are still in the search area.  I've been making a point sometimes to keep her in the search area after we've found the hides, as if we are still looking, so it doesn't feel weird to her in trials.  AND if she doesn't try to fake me out, I'm also giving her a bit of peanut butter when I call finish and we leave.  I am hoping this will help her understand we don't have to end on a hide and she might get peanut butter then too. 

Of course, my job will be to make sure I don't get caught up in her looking.  When I get too interested, in watching I pay too much attention and then convince her to false alert.  Or I panic because they've called "30 seconds" and then I call alert when she didn't.