I thought it was going to be really hot, but it was only 78º in the shade. Gimme was eager to get back to class. From the moment she realized where we were going until I took her out of the car for her first search, she "yelled" at me nonstop. I forgot my camera, so no videos this time. Too bad because the searches were interesting, to include Gimme finding her "baby" during the interior search.
Our first search was the interior. They'd set up 7 tables with lots of chairs scattered near them. There were two hides. One on the bottom of a table, the corner nearest the door (start line), about 5 feet. The other hide was on the bottom of a chair, which was on top of a table at the other end of the room.
Gimme blasted into the room and went midway down the room where she found the baby (a bright blue bear toy), which she proceeded to squeak excitedly. I told her to "bring" it to me and then "release" it, which she did. Then I cued her "wherezit". As she went back to work, I dropped it behind me. After she found the threshold hide, she headed to the other end of the room, finding the toy again. Again I cued her to "bring" it and "release" it, reminding her to "find another one". Dorothy thought I was crazy for dropping it again, but my thinking is she needs to learn she has to work when it's time to work. While working the second chair-on-table hide, Gimme saw the toy and headed for it. I did a little body block to remind her not now. So she went back to work and found the hide. As soon as she'd finished her nuggies (chicken nuggets), she ran over and grabbed the toy and carried it to the door. Clearly she knew there were no more hides and evidently thought the toy was her reward. She was pouty when I took it and left it on the shelf.
Our second search was a very large exterior with three hides. We were given 3 minutes. Gimme had the first hide in 11 seconds, Dorothy said I had it at 20 seconds. From there she got over to the far end of the search area and found hide two in the end of a long pipe. She wasted no time getting from there up the other side and finding hide three at the bottom of a drain spout. Gimme had all three hides in 1:20 - she was easily the fastest. Dorothy said I got faster in calling them after the first one.
The third search was an exterior with heavy equipment in it. There were two hides and we were given 2½ minutes. Gimme really took her time with this one and used almost the whole time. She finally found a hide in the end of another pipe. I had noticed her giving the opposite end a good long sniff, so it was likely channeling. Then when the instructor called 2 minutes, I moved her back near the startline where she had shown some interest. She found the second hide on the front corner of one of the pieces of heavy equipment. From the way she went off the startline, she never really went by the front, so only caught a drift of it.
This was a complicated messy search area. She's searched on big equipment many times, but there was a big muddy mess and other strange things, so I think it was just a lot of new smells. It's also possible she was annoyed at me. After the other exterior search, she'd headed to the door to the building, clearly wanting to go in. Maybe she thought she was getting the toy again. I did offer to buy it for her, but Dorothy said she could have it. She was very happy to have it, carried it in the house and slept with it all evening. She even took it to bed. Maybe the reason she hadn't selected a baby was because she needed some new toys to choose from. Or else she's messing with my mind (because she can).
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