Nosework (6/23)

Vehicle 1 video - To make the search more "interesting" Dorothy purposely rubbed a piece of dried tripe on her bumper.  Needless to say, it wasn't beneath Gimme's notice.  To her credit she didn't get stuck there.  As she passed odor and was headed toward the evil bumper, she had no problem turning away from tripe-smell and back to odor.  We took another turn around the vehicle and this time she tried to ignore the bumper, until I swung her around so it was right under her nose and even then she didn't even pause for it, sniffing on the go.  Something you don't get to see, but that I love is when we go down the side of a vehicle, how she keeps walking, but her nose goes up and down and up and down as she goes, scanning.

Vehicle 2 video - All the dogs got stuck with the lingering odor on the back wheel.  It had only been a couple minutes since they'd found odor there and because of the search approach it was the first odor they smelled.  I just stood there and let her sort it out on her own.  The hide was on the front license plate and she was very clear about it.  She paid no attention to tripe-smell.  She half-heartedly tried to tell me the tire was it, but left it readily.  She was happy to get paid a second time for the real deal.

Container 1 video - Gimme did a really nice job on this search.  Having the containers up on chairs is different than what we'd see in a regular container search, but common for searches in a container element trial.  In her element trial container searches, Gimme saw boxes on higher surfaces multiple times.  She had it in 10 seconds.  She did a very nice job of checking the box on the chair in the corner - something which is often missed as dogs round the corners.

Container 2 video - This time the odor box was moved to the opposite end of the L-shaped line.  Dorothy moves the entire chair with the box on it, so there really shouldn't have been any lingering odor to speak of.  Perhaps she was just really eager to get to the raw steak and chicken nuggets I had for treats, since really good treats are sometimes a distraction.

Container 3 video - The time the odor box is on the corner chair.  Gimme was really happy to find it so quickly - 11 seconds.  I don't normally bring her around to find and be rewarded a second time, but if I have a specific behavior I want to cement I will.  In this case, since she was behaving a bit odd in the prior search, I wanted to double up on this search where she was searching clean and serious.

For these last two searches, the boxes were back on the ground in an unusual configuration. 

Container 4 video - Part of it was to experience how we would handle it when we got to the end of one leg of the "Y" and still had an un-searched leg.  Do we cross to the end of it or go back to the middle? Gimme finds the first hide in 5 seconds, stopping on a thin dime.  From there she went directly to the second hide in 3 seconds.  She found the third hide in 7 seconds.  Sometimes we spend more time getting rewards than we do searching.  As a training goal we want to always get to the boxes we missed, though it almost always turns out the dog already knows there is nothing there.

Container 5 video - The second search was an "L" shape.  Gimme had the first hide in 5 seconds.  She actually went steaming right by the first box, which contained a hide.  She got all the hides very fast.  I can't tell which she likes better, raw steak or chicken nuggets.

This kid is awesome...