Nosework (5/16)

Nosework class followed an Easter theme this week.  Dorothy likes to find cool ways to bring the holidays into our searches.

Our first search (blind) was 6 open egg cartons with plastic eggs in them, on the front sidewalk.  I brought my camera, but Dorothy forgot and didn't get us recorded.  Gimme was a bit unfocused.  She went right past the hide in the first egg carton, though I did notice she sniffed it and number two, with a little hesitation.  When she got to the end of the line, she happily bashed the number six carton and enjoyed getting paid.  As we went back toward the other end she was clearly bashing any old egg carton trying to get me to pay up - probably because I was being clumsy in my peanut butter delivery.  I'd put my bait bag and vest in the wash, so couldn't really do what I had planned and was trying something new.  When Gimme didn't get paid for bashing numbers 4 and 3, then she settled down and sniffed intently at the number 2 carton.  I called it too soon.  Odor was in the number 1 carton and probably drifting up against number 2.  

Our second search (blind) was indoors, with a large plastic egg on each of a bunch of chairs set in an oval, with the seats facing out.  We found out later the hides were in green and orange eggs.  Note the cute start "cone" Easter baskets.  We were told handlers couldn't go inside the ring of chairs.  Second search video

Gimme went up the right side and sniffed the orange egg a bit, but didn't stick it or indicate.  Of course, I was rushing her a little to get her off the bookshelf nearby.  She really worked hard to sort out which egg it was for the first hide and she was all over three chairs before deciding.  You can't see in the video, but she stuck her head under all three chairs trying to decide.  For the second hide she found, she pushed in between the chairs to check it from behind to confirm which it was and then shoved the whole chair to indicate.  Unfortunately her distraction to the table and the way I moved her away from it (at 1:55) served to move her past the green egg too quickly.  You'll see she sniffed at the purple egg and then looked to me and since I was already moving past it, she just came with me.  I think if I hadn't been moving past it, she might have checked the chairs on either side.  On a positive note, I did take her back to the area of the orange egg she sniffed earlier, so she found this third hide.  If you watch when she gets back to the green egg, I was actually coming right behind her and we are funneling into a tight area, so I think I pushed her past it - to where she re-alerted on the second hide she found.  

My impression of this search was Gimme wasn't very focused, but after watching the video I don't see lack of focus.  Instead I see somewhat minor timing issues on my part which served to interrupt the flow of her search.  In hindsight, Tuesday night was the start of my head cold, so its likely *I* was the one with lack of focus.  I should know without looking at the video who's fault it is...