Nosework (4/22)

Interior 1 video - Our first search was an empty warehouse.  Its actually our old classroom (class has moved across the street to the new building) and they had electricity for one more day so it was a good chance to do an empty warehouse search.  There were no hides and the goal was to see how the dog looked without odor.  Gimme was searching actively and in person I didn't see anything different, but on video I see she looks a bit casual.  She is searching persistently.  When she doesn't find any trace of odor in the first minute, you'll notice she starts looking higher and higher.  She loves high hides, so this doesn't surprise me.  I let her go on until she seemed like she was loosing interest.

Interior 2 video - This search was the same area, but with 4 hides.  The first thing I see different is actual changes of behavior.  Perhaps what I was calling "casual" in the prior search was an absence of COB, no sharp turns or anything, with more "sweeping" movement.  Another thing I noticed - when she gets close to odor there is a tendency for her butt to get in on the tail-wagging action.  Her tail never stops wagging when she's awake (and even some times when she isn't), but I saw a bit of butt swish on a couple of these hides.

Interior 3 video - Our third search was in the new building with 3 hides.  I didn't think she'd be so taken by this new area, since she's searched in strange places many times, but all the dogs were.  We concluded its the smell of familiar stuff in a strange place which threw them off their game.   She did a good job finding the hides, but took longer than I would have expected.  We'll see how she does this week since she will be familiar with the new setup. 

There was a large box of free stuff for the taking - things purged during the move.  It was a lot of interesting tins and such for hides, but I already have more than I need.  After our search the co-instructor was explaining about the free box and, although she'd showed no interest in the box before, Gimme immediately went over and stuck her head in it. 

Of course she finds the only toy in there - a food dispensing toy.  None of the other dogs got a toy, but Gimme doesn't feel sorry for them, since they all searched before her and had their chance.  She's been having great fun with it ever since.  Gimme had too many toys to count before Christmas.  She got a Boinga from her friends General Patton and Allikat, as well as 23 new toys from me and Santa (she hasn't even played with all of them yet), so I don't know why she thinks she needs ANOTHER toy.  Apparently I don't fully understand about such things