Barn Hunt practice

We joined the Eatonville Rat Rangers last Saturday, December 30th, for the "Goodbye 2017" barn hunt practice.

I had planned to do tracking that morning before practice, but I knew Gimme was starting into her false pregnancy, so wanted to stick with something easier, more natural. I thought fun and easy would be a better choice in her condition.

Still I wanted to challenge Gimme, so for both of her searches I placed an open jar of peanut butter outside the ring, just inches from the fencing. This is my idea to train on an issue I've noticed at trials. Gimme often goes to the gate repeatedly during our masters searches, making me think there are no more rats.  There was a time when it was a reliable time to call "finish", but not any more.  This doesn't happen at practices.

It occurred to me, I always have peanut butter in my treat bag at trials because we spend time in the blind and it's part of our routine to help her deal with close proximity to other dogs. So my treat bag with the peanut butter is left sitting on a bale of straw just a couple feet from the ring gate. At practices we go right in to the ring without spending time in a blind.  We do have to pass other dogs, but it's fast and we don't need peanut butter.

So I thought the PB in my bag might be drawing her to the gate. My plan is to have peanut butter outside the ring at practices until she is able to ignore it entirely. During practice Gimme repeatedly went to the gate where the PB jar was and I had to encourage her to get back to work finding rats. She did better during her second turn.

Next time I want to have the PB pre-positioned when we arrive at ringside and when we leave we'll walk by it to go outside for a walk. After our walk she can have some peanut butter in a Kong. I think we have to do two things, one - teach her she can't have it just because it's there, and two - have a significant break in time between being in the ring and getting peanut butter. I'm not sure how long that break needs to be.

It also occurs to me I should have a little dish of peanut butter as distraction when we are training other things, just to instill the idea.  She's able to walk 4 miles with me while I have her peanut butter go toob in my treat bag and she knows it's only available at certain times (when bicycles or dogs pass us).  She doesn't pester me for it at other times, so I think it's a matter of transferring this knowledge to the barn hunt set up.

 This is a process and it's just gonna take time.