In nosework class tonight, we did another series of progression searches. The classroom area was divided into two areas. One area was small and jam packed with stuff. The other area was about 3 times as big and very open. The searches were done in pairs.
Interior 1 video - With all the stuff in the search area, it was very hard to keep Gimme in the camera f.o.v. There was only one hide. I was really kinda surprised how long this took, but in hindsight it makes sense. Because the area was so crowded, it restricts her movement, so once she started sourcing, she's doing a lot of moving in a small area and basically stirring up the scent picture, making it harder and harder to sort out.
Interior 2 video - Open area with 1 hide. Gimme was immediately fascinated by the toys on the floor, though she mostly ignores them. She became obsessed with one toy and the advice was to let her satiate on it. She's never been interested in bottle-inside toys before. After a minute, I knew she was not going to satiate, so I tried gently walking through/over it, hoping to split her off it. Didn't work. So then I had to basically tell her to leave it and "find odor". I stood near it to discourage her from returning to it. It took her almost another minute to find odor because she was so distracted by the toy. I was in the middle of praising and being very generous with treats and everyone erupted in laughter because while I was digging for more treats, Gimme looked over at the toy once more. <sigh>
She's so mistreated - she only has 4 baskets of toys at home. She says:
Everyone knows two-hundred toys is not enough.
Interior 3 video - Crowded area with 2 hides. This wouldn't have taken so long, but Gimme really wanted to get to the toy in the other area and had to be reminded to get to work. She does get to work, but then after finding the first hide, has to be reminded again. She thought finding one should be enough. Its so hard to concentrate on work when a girl is so deprived and knows toy-paradise is just on the other side of the divider.
Interior 4 video - Open area with 2 hides. Dorothy picked up the toy and was holding it under her arm while she recorded the search. Gimme knew immediately where the toy was; note the "look" less than 2 seconds into the search. Dorothy gets the "look" several times (not always caught on camera). Gimme does pretty good in this search. I think knowing the toy was unavailable made it less distracting (compare this to how it goes in the 6th search when it was on the toy shelf, which Gimme thinks could be available).
Interior 5 video - Crowded area with 3 hides set close together to form a converging odor puzzle, basically the vortex-from-hell. She scans the area and finds the first one very quickly. For some reason all the dogs thought the other two hides were higher than they were and kept checking the table edges. Of course, she now thinks once she finds 2 hides its time to go play with the toy and had to be reminded to get back to work. This is a really hard challenge normally and with this level of distraction, it was beyond hard. Still she did well.
Interior 6 video - Open area, 2 hides. Gimme knew exactly where the toy was, which she shows 20 seconds into the search by checking out the toy shelf (the one she wanted was on the top shelf). She'll go back repeatedly to check it - after all, its really just out of reach. She finds the first hide pretty quickly, but then really has to work to locate the other hide, which was closer to the toy shelf. Because she worked through it without having to be really reminded to leave the toy shelf (she decided each time on her own), I again rewarded her with the toy.
So the question everyone always asks is: Since Gimme clearly loves toys, why don't I reward her with them? The answer is: Because she loses interest in them. I think part of the reason she loses interest is because she always has to give up the toy so soon. I'd love to reward Gimme with toys since she loves to play, so I asked Dorothy after class for a suggestion of how to work with this. Her idea is that I should have a special nosework toy that I use to reward the last hide, so Gimme can tug all the way to the car if she likes.
I'm going to have to make a toy which is both easy for me to carry and to tug with, as well as being enticing for Gimme. I have an idea and hopefully I can get it done before the next class.
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