
is a little gravel space
The first time we searched it there were no hides and the idea was to observe our dog's behavior when there was no odor for them to smell. For the most part the other dogs acted very different. In Gimme's case, she continued trying to find something. All the dogs spent time checking out the gravel space and were interested in the landscaping at the top corner. We all tended to go against the building on the left, then up across the top near all the stuff. All the dogs left the search area checking the pallet and going over by the POD. As we all came back toward the beginning, we each walked along the inside edge of the "L", which was delineated by cones. Some of the dogs tried to play with the cones. Gimme acted like she might play with the cones, but then thought better of it and carefully checked each one for odor.
She showed the least sign of the dogs that she was treating this search any different than one where she could detect odor immediately. I remember when we did searches at Home Depot using all the sample garden sheds - Gimme used to go immediately into any blank shed and check it and would arc around the ones with hides. She'd check the ones with hides on the way back down the row. So it seems consistent to me for her to treat this the same as when she detected odor right away.
One discussion point was about how you reward them after searching a blank area. Some people reward as they are leaving, some reward with a secondary reward (praise vs. food/toy) and some don't reward at all. In my case, I told Gimme she was a good girl and then when we got back to the car she got half a peanut-butter-mini cookie. She almost always gets one for going in her crate, so I saw no reason to change our routine.

The other dogs all went past the second hide (on the pipes) without showing any sign they noticed it, to the POD, then swung toward the parking lot. From there they came to the pipes and sniffed around on the ground a lot before they could source the hide. We were discussing it and thought they were catching the scent trapping against the pallet and POD. But then Gimme did it different (she was last), and her search was more efficient. She did swing toward the parking lot before she sourced it, which all the dogs did. We think the reason they all sniffed around on the ground was because the pipes were hard plastic so the scent didn't stick to them and tended to pool on the blacktop. Gimme was the fastest to get from the ground to the hide, about 2' up.
The next search was a series of five open boxes in a row. We actually did it four times. The first time (starting from the left on the diagram below), we went up the row of boxes - each containing a hide and a little dish of food for self-rewarding. We were supposed to keep them on a pretty short leash and not add any reward. For the second time coming back, all the boxes had a hide and we were to wait for the dog to show they expected us to pay before rewarding. If the dog "walked" the hide (i.e. didn't stop and "ask" for pay), we were to go on. As we did the second round and were turning, the instructors took up all the hides, so we had a row of blank boxes. Then as we were turning at the other end, one hide was placed in the second to last box for our last run down the line.


In this case "insistent" equals Demolition Gimme, doncha know.
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