Dorothy wasn't there, so we only had the one instructor. We basically repeated the drill from last week, but outside. Thus we had an introductory search, with the two chairs. From there we went to do two searches in area 1, 2, or 3. There was also a self-serve search indoors, which we didn't have last week.
Introductory search 1 video - This was a search of the hides on two chairs right next to each other. Gimme found the first hide very fast. On the second one she was inclined to accept close, without sourcing, so we waited for her to source the hide. There may actually have been some scent blowing from the first hide to make her think it was source. Still a very fast search.
Search 2 video - Since I was a few minutes late for class I didn't really know what was included in the search area and wrongly concluded it was just the heavy equipment. Fortunately Gimme doesn't need me to have-a-clue to find odor. She was very quick.
Search 3 video - What is cool about this search is how Gimme passes odor by a few strides and then turns back to it and sources it. In the past she's been happy to catalog the area and then come around again to find source. She did a nice job.
Didn't get the first self-serve search recorded. Too bad, since Gimme did really nicely. The hide was in a crack in the floor, so it took her a little bit to find it, but not too long, especially since she prefers high hides.
Introductory search 4 video - Gimme again found the first hide very quickly. As you watch her on the second hide, it looks like she concluded the timing of my "yes" was for paw-whacking the chair, not indicating source. So you'll see her go to the other chair and just whack it before she even used her nose on it. And since this is the fourth time she's seen the two chair search, she may have figured out the drill. So I had to wait for her to get down to business and source before I rewarded her.
Search 5 video - Gimme wasted time finding a dropped treat, though she may not consider it a waste of time. She localized the area of the hide, so I knew she was "in odor", it just took her a little bit to locate source. Fortunately in trials we won't be challenged by all the lingering odor (these hides were moved for every search). She was nicely focused and given the multiple locations of lingering odor and the distracting smells from inside the trash can, I thought it was a nice, fast search..
Search 6 video - The thing with lingering odor is to just let her check it out and determine for herself whether its the real deal or not, because it adds to her experience base. You'll see as I start to turn to take her to the other side of the search area, she catches the scent and drives ahead of me, having made her decision well before I got there.
Self-serve search 7 video - Sorry about the jiggly-ness of the video, I was handling my dog, moving around and recording all at the same time. I liked seeing how she actually caught the scent bouncing off the table and chairs and then triangulated it directly to the spot where the hide was on the easel. She's very smart about using her nose.
A friend was talking to me about how disappointed she was to go to a traveling nosework class and only get 1 search of about 3 minutes, for $25 per class. I pay $140 for six weeks of class, so about $23.50 per class. Tonight I got about 5 minutes of actual search time, which after looking back at videos from prior classes, is about average. I remember a class where we got 1 search, but it was a very
long search (about 7 minutes) with many hides. $25 for one search is comparable to a trial at
novice... where you get 4 searches, for $100, but it takes up the whole day. It seems a little high to me, but might be right for the area. You also have
to decide if the benefit is worth it. Are you going to go to the effort
to set up searches in strange places and do you have the resources/contacts to use
strange places? So just a bit of food-for-thought for our loyal readers.
Now Gimme wants me to get off the dang computer and do something interesting for HER.
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