Nosework (5/23)

It was another night of container searches.  I had some leftover chicken nuggets, which I cut up and added to our treat mix.  These turned out to be highly motivating to Gimme.  My plan was to be sure I worked our indicator in all our searches.  These especially motivating treats were a bit of a challenge, since Gimme was distracted by the possibilities, so not thinking clearly.  After class was over, Dorothy was changing out the odor boxes and replaced two of them, so she gave me the two crumpled ones (which were partly smashed before Gimme got to them, just sayin...).

The searches were all set up the same, boxes in a square.  We each brought distractions.  We were to continue the search and cover all the boxes, regardless of whether there were any more.

Container search 1 video - 1 hide, no distractions.  I didn't catch Dorothy's first comment about "so attractive" and don't quite get it in context, unless it's because Gimme started reverse sneezing partway down the first line of boxes.  Still it didn't hamper her and she found the hide in 15 seconds.   She got the first piece of chicken nugget at the end of working the indication.

Container search 2 video - 2 hides, 3 distractions.  Gimme found the first hide in 4.5 seconds.  Excluding the time spent on working her indication, she found the second hide in 1.5 seconds.  She went directly to it, so it sure seemed she knew exactly where it was.  Clearly she likes those nuggets.  She paid no attention to the distractions.

Container search 3 video - 3 hides, 6 distractions.  I'm not sure what Dorothy didn't like about our start.  I thought Gimme did fine.  She was a little bit all over, but found all the hides very quickly: 7 seconds, 5 seconds and 15.5 seconds.  The length of time finding the third hide was more about me swinging her around to make sure she covered all the bases.  She again paid no attention to the distractions.

Container search 4 video - 3 hides, 11 distractions.  Gimme finds the first hide in 3.5 seconds, second in 3 seconds, and third in just under 12 seconds (including the time spent checking the distraction box with the cat toy inside).  Her interest in the cat toy, while defined by her hatred of all things feline, was exaggerated when she stepped on the box "poofing" it.  The last box she showed interest in, was a bacon cheeseburger.  I let her decide to leave it on her own and then rewarded her when she made the choice to return to an odor box.

Overall I thought it was a very good class and Gimme did really well ignoring most of the distractions.  I had purposefully planned to do two things - work her indications and work my plan to keep moving when she hit on a distraction.  I didn't really need to work my distraction plan until the last search and then didn't really do it.  Then again, odor boxes were clearly marked, so it was easy to know when she was sucked into a distraction.  Still I should do it to keep clean habits for when I'm at a trial and don't know which is odor and which is a distraction.